Post by Wood~Ant on Jul 19, 2007 13:24:35 GMT
Thanks to Deansyme I now have a nice colony of Formica lemani. I last kept this species when I was 16, 40 years have passed since then.
To the eye, F. lemani look very much like F. fusca, and as the 2 species are closely related cousins, their habits of nesting and foraging are exactly the same, except that fusca prefer to nest on more southerly or westerly aspects while lemani will nest on easterly or northerly facing sites.
The main difference is that fusca live as far up as Derbyshire and Cheshire in mainland Britain, then tend to stop; whereas lemani begins in Devon going up through Wales and as far north as the Scottish highlands. Formica lemani has also colonized many areas of Ireland, while fusca is limited to southern Eire, although it has been found in the English Lake District, though it is nowhere near as common as F. lemani is.
Anyway, enough of my rambling. It is nice to have these ants again, and I hope they will do as well as the colony I had when I lived at my parents house all those years ago
To the eye, F. lemani look very much like F. fusca, and as the 2 species are closely related cousins, their habits of nesting and foraging are exactly the same, except that fusca prefer to nest on more southerly or westerly aspects while lemani will nest on easterly or northerly facing sites.
The main difference is that fusca live as far up as Derbyshire and Cheshire in mainland Britain, then tend to stop; whereas lemani begins in Devon going up through Wales and as far north as the Scottish highlands. Formica lemani has also colonized many areas of Ireland, while fusca is limited to southern Eire, although it has been found in the English Lake District, though it is nowhere near as common as F. lemani is.
Anyway, enough of my rambling. It is nice to have these ants again, and I hope they will do as well as the colony I had when I lived at my parents house all those years ago
. with the 4 queens and lots of pupae the colony should grow at a good rate. I have set up my colony of 8 queens, 30 workers, and 80-90 pupae now as well...so should be good too..keep us posted on how they are doing. 
