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Post by TenebrousNova on Jul 15, 2012 16:33:57 GMT
In recent times, the nurse ants will scatter as usual when I take the container out to examine, and the queen will retreat as usual- but this time, although her majesty is too paranoid to come out of hiding, the nurse workers will very quickly return to what they're doing. The reason for their smug feeling of security? There is a constant guard rotation of at least six workers at a time patrolling the lid, making it difficult to feed them, much less take photos. Here's the nurses with a pile of pupae. I had moments to close the lid corner again as a pair of guards came scrambling up to the scene. ;D
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jul 15, 2012 17:33:00 GMT
Video. And bonus image of the queen and her newborns.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jul 16, 2012 11:12:47 GMT
Another photo. As you may have noticed, wild Lasius niger workers at the bigger sizes tend to look quite round and robust, while workers from newer colonies are smaller and slimmer. I have noticed a small number of such large workers in the colony, mostly callows at the moment, although I haven't noticed any larger pupae around. They appear to act as repletes. There's a lot more workers in the colony than my photos thus far may have led you to assume, but the cotton that the queen nests under always has a very large number of them- they're virtually packed together. ;D
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jul 19, 2012 18:49:30 GMT
I put the Lasius on the windowsill in the late sunlight so that they can enjoy the warmth. Taking photos was chaos as usual, here they are. The final one is a bit bigger, here it is. They're doing excellently; when they were first disturbed the bottom of the container was covered in ants. ;D
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jul 29, 2012 9:27:18 GMT
They're still doing terrifically. To her disgust and horror this morning, my sister found a very large (And dead) female house spider in her room this morning. ;D The ants seem to appreciate it!
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Post by TenebrousNova on Aug 11, 2012 12:27:50 GMT
Finally moved them, albeit with difficulty. They're now in my old lunch box, which is filled with lawn topsoil. Easy to dig into, and what you'd find them nesting within in the wild. As you can see, they've already established some nest entrances. I tipped their old container upside down with the lid off. I would have done it differently if there weren't thirty workers running all over my windowsill. I haven't seen the queen since, but she's definitely in there somewhere. I made a few starter tunnels with a cotton bud, which they began to expand. This is the only chamber visible at the moment: I'm assuming that there's more to the nest judging by the positions of the nest entrances. I'm glad I've got this out of the way at last. There's been plenty of foragers.
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Post by deansyme on Aug 12, 2012 13:42:27 GMT
Nice mate
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Post by TenebrousNova on Aug 13, 2012 10:26:52 GMT
I gave them a bluebottle a few days ago, and they expanded one of the nest entrances to try and squeeze it in. This morning I have found the remains of the bluebottle on the surface, intact apart from an incision on the underside revealing a hollowed out space. The queen hasn't revealed herself so far but I know that she's alive and well, because there's a fresh ball of eggs in the chamber shown above. Furthermore, they seem to be building a long chamber against the side. It was filled with pupae when I looked earlier. There's always at least four workers on the surface. Once I provide them with food or honey, more workers come out of the nest to feed. There's more subtle signs of activity as well, such as freshly dug up soil and the remains of cocoons. Interesting as it is to watch a colony in it's entirety, I think it's much better to see them in a natural soil nest.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Aug 14, 2012 10:14:16 GMT
The ball of eggs is getting quite big now.
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Post by Wood~Ant on Aug 14, 2012 10:26:50 GMT
Wow, looking good Timenova
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Post by TenebrousNova on Aug 18, 2012 13:14:16 GMT
Today, I took advantage of the very warm weather and visited the Queen Elizabeth country park, near Portsmouth. I saw a large Myrmica nest bristling with drones just within the tunnels, although I wasn't able to stay for long enough. I also found Lasius flavus mounds along the paths. I dug a little into one of them and again, found a large number of drones and princesses. Same with a very large Lasius niger colony that I found. However, I decided to look into the nest a little (Which was built into a mostly rotted tree stump) and found large numbers of eggs and some pupae. I collected at least one hundred eggs and about ten pupae, fended off the furious workers who were biting me from fingers to wrists, then removed the workers in the container who were attempting to retrieve the brood. That colony is enormous, I don't think I took too much. When I got home, I introduced the eggs and pupae to this colony. Naturally, they were only too happy to take them off my hands. ;D This is the first time that I've ever boosted this colony. There will be many new mouths for my L.niger to feed soon enough.
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Post by Wood~Ant on Aug 18, 2012 13:36:37 GMT
Today, I took advantage of the very warm weather and visited the Queen Elizabeth country park, near Portsmouth. I saw a large Myrmica nest bristling with drones just within the tunnels, although I wasn't able to stay for long enough. That's the big woodland park up near Petersfield that goes up to Butser Hill isn't it?
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Post by TenebrousNova on Aug 18, 2012 14:22:32 GMT
The very same. There's definitely Formica fusca living there as well, but I've yet to find an actual nest of them.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Sept 3, 2012 18:36:26 GMT
I am very happy with this colony's progress, they're still doing excellently. The visible brood chambers are crammed full of cocooned pupae, and presumably there's many larvae hidden away. Here's their set up: I had taken some soft, rotten wood from the tree stump where I found the wild colony and sprinkled it over the soil to give it the look of a forest floor. The workers get excited when I take the lid off and there's always plenty of them looking for food. There were about forty on the surface when I put in a cricket and some honey earlier. Finally, they have been digging an elaborate labyrinth of tunnels against the sides. It's nice to watch them at work. I haven't seen her but I'm sure that the queen is happy, she's a tough lady and has recovered from near disaster twice.
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Post by Antboy888 on Sept 3, 2012 22:55:43 GMT
Very nice and healthy colony you have there.
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