Post by Vendayn on Jan 1, 2009 21:03:57 GMT
Hey everyone. 
Hope all your new years was good.
A lot has happened with me...I'll briefly touch on this subject, not really gonna go into a long thing about it. But after about a year of being sick and getting worse my grandma (dads side of the family over in England) died of Bone cancer on Christmas day (1 am UK time), it was Christmas eve of course in the US.
So on to other things...I have one ant colony, Forelius mccooki I believe they are. But Forelius are hard to tell apart and there are two common species that look exactly the same (at least from an ant keepers view), but I'm just going to call them Forelius mccooki. Have had them since August (2008) and all my queens are still alive, sadly a lot of the workers escaped and I only have about 20 workers left. They'll come back though, they are a very healthy colony. They are on my book shelf and I let them crawl around, before they were on the porch and who knows where they went. I surround the area with cinnamon which ants really hate and tend to avoid it, if they do try to crawl past it they fall back down because the pile collapses on them. They've learned to avoid it and have stopped trying to cross.
They will be my last ant colony I keep. Over the years I've just had almost no success with ants. My few successes ended in disaster. My recent was Pogonomyrmex californicus...did so good that almost the whole container was dug out. Looked in and it all collapsed on them. Solenopsis invicta did so good that there was so many I just didn't have the room or money for them, plus they were escaping by the hundreds...that colony had easily over 100,000 ants. I had them for 7 months (they reached 100,000 in 6th months). Had a Solenopsis xyloni colony that got to about 80,000 ants in 6 months...queen died of old age. I do call them my one true success, because they never escaped and they would have been invaded by the Argentine ants anyway (they were being attacked already). So really only two true successes, my Solenopsis xyloni colony and my current Forelius colony. I just feel incredibly bad taking hundreds of queens and colonies to have them only die. Ant keeping is just not my thing, and I'm not one to get things to just have them die.
I'll watch ants in the wild for now on They are still very interesting, and I can pick a colony I want to help and feed them and stuff and watch them just like an ant farm colony.
I've since moved to Termite keeping...boring to watch outside because you never see them, unlike ants. Very fascinating in an ant farm. I have to either use a very hard plastic like polycarbonate (they chew through soft plastics (acrylic is soft)and soft metals (like lead) , can chew through plaster and some say concrete too but not sure if thats true. I have one colony I've had for almost 2 years now...might even be 2 years in a 10 gallon aquarium. One in a glass jar which have a queen now! I transfered some termites in the aquarium to the jar to start a new colony, that wasn't too long ago either so I'm surprised I have a queen already. And I got my newest colony around Christmas time when I was on vacation at my grandparents place, they are in a Polycarbonate plastic jar thing (a really big jar) . I actually learned yesterday they can't chew through Polycarbonate, I was gonna move the container into a tank but I won't need to. I got really lucky with the container I chose at my grandparents place.
My termites in the 10 gallon tank have about 500 termites I would say and I've seen baby termites so there must be a queen or queens (oh and all of them are Subterranean termites, the best termite to keep). The ones in the jar have less than 50, not a great number to start a colony...but I'll see how it goes. My new colony I've started with about 1000 termites.
What I like about termites is they can't escape (unless you use something they can chew through) which with ants I always had problems with them escaping...I kinda figured a way around that with my Forelius ants though. Not much care involved, just throw wood in and mist them (less water if they are a desert/dry climate species, but they still don't mind water) and are actually pretty interesting to watch. They are very calming, and you can bump things you have the container on or move their container slowly and they won't swarm all over you and bite you or swarm out of the container and start crawling all over. Termites are the easiest pet I've kept ever and very interesting to watch. I've found termites are a lot more interesting to watch in captivity than ants are (for me anyway) and like I said a lot easier. Ants are still very interesting to watch outside though.
Its actually really funny...talk to people and list your pets, at the end when you list termites they gasp in horror. But I'm one of those people who doesn't care what others think of me or what I do or keep...as long as its within the law of course...I do care what police think ;D
I'm actually thinking of making youtube videos of my termite colony (one with 1000 termites, because they will be the only colony I can video tape. The others are too hard to see and catch footage of. Can't take pics of them either.) and maybe making a website about termites. Not many people keep termites, in fact I've found very very few...I can count all of the people I found through youtube and google to keep termites on one or two hands (oh by the way when I typed hands I typed ants first lol).
Let me see...besides my termites and my new interest and my grandma...not much else is new. Oh oh...I'll be moving in February, not sure exactly where but it will be in California. Right now I'm in San Diego, but we'll be moving out of county...not the nicest place here and its way too expensive. We may move beginning of February but probably will end up being either in mid-Feb or more likely near the end of Feb.
Hope all your new years was good.A lot has happened with me...I'll briefly touch on this subject, not really gonna go into a long thing about it. But after about a year of being sick and getting worse my grandma (dads side of the family over in England) died of Bone cancer on Christmas day (1 am UK time), it was Christmas eve of course in the US.
So on to other things...I have one ant colony, Forelius mccooki I believe they are. But Forelius are hard to tell apart and there are two common species that look exactly the same (at least from an ant keepers view), but I'm just going to call them Forelius mccooki. Have had them since August (2008) and all my queens are still alive, sadly a lot of the workers escaped and I only have about 20 workers left. They'll come back though, they are a very healthy colony. They are on my book shelf and I let them crawl around, before they were on the porch and who knows where they went. I surround the area with cinnamon which ants really hate and tend to avoid it, if they do try to crawl past it they fall back down because the pile collapses on them. They've learned to avoid it and have stopped trying to cross.
They will be my last ant colony I keep. Over the years I've just had almost no success with ants. My few successes ended in disaster. My recent was Pogonomyrmex californicus...did so good that almost the whole container was dug out. Looked in and it all collapsed on them. Solenopsis invicta did so good that there was so many I just didn't have the room or money for them, plus they were escaping by the hundreds...that colony had easily over 100,000 ants. I had them for 7 months (they reached 100,000 in 6th months). Had a Solenopsis xyloni colony that got to about 80,000 ants in 6 months...queen died of old age. I do call them my one true success, because they never escaped and they would have been invaded by the Argentine ants anyway (they were being attacked already). So really only two true successes, my Solenopsis xyloni colony and my current Forelius colony. I just feel incredibly bad taking hundreds of queens and colonies to have them only die. Ant keeping is just not my thing, and I'm not one to get things to just have them die.
I'll watch ants in the wild for now on
They are still very interesting, and I can pick a colony I want to help and feed them and stuff and watch them just like an ant farm colony.I've since moved to Termite keeping...boring to watch outside because you never see them, unlike ants. Very fascinating in an ant farm. I have to either use a very hard plastic like polycarbonate (they chew through soft plastics (acrylic is soft)and soft metals (like lead) , can chew through plaster and some say concrete too but not sure if thats true. I have one colony I've had for almost 2 years now...might even be 2 years in a 10 gallon aquarium. One in a glass jar which have a queen now! I transfered some termites in the aquarium to the jar to start a new colony, that wasn't too long ago either so I'm surprised I have a queen already. And I got my newest colony around Christmas time when I was on vacation at my grandparents place, they are in a Polycarbonate plastic jar thing (a really big jar) . I actually learned yesterday they can't chew through Polycarbonate, I was gonna move the container into a tank but I won't need to. I got really lucky with the container I chose at my grandparents place.
My termites in the 10 gallon tank have about 500 termites I would say and I've seen baby termites so there must be a queen or queens (oh and all of them are Subterranean termites, the best termite to keep). The ones in the jar have less than 50, not a great number to start a colony...but I'll see how it goes. My new colony I've started with about 1000 termites.
What I like about termites is they can't escape (unless you use something they can chew through) which with ants I always had problems with them escaping...I kinda figured a way around that with my Forelius ants though. Not much care involved, just throw wood in and mist them (less water if they are a desert/dry climate species, but they still don't mind water) and are actually pretty interesting to watch. They are very calming, and you can bump things you have the container on or move their container slowly and they won't swarm all over you and bite you or swarm out of the container and start crawling all over. Termites are the easiest pet I've kept ever and very interesting to watch. I've found termites are a lot more interesting to watch in captivity than ants are (for me anyway) and like I said a lot easier. Ants are still very interesting to watch outside though.
Its actually really funny...talk to people and list your pets, at the end when you list termites they gasp in horror. But I'm one of those people who doesn't care what others think of me or what I do or keep...as long as its within the law of course...I do care what police think ;D
I'm actually thinking of making youtube videos of my termite colony (one with 1000 termites, because they will be the only colony I can video tape. The others are too hard to see and catch footage of. Can't take pics of them either.) and maybe making a website about termites. Not many people keep termites, in fact I've found very very few...I can count all of the people I found through youtube and google to keep termites on one or two hands (oh by the way when I typed hands I typed ants first lol).
Let me see...besides my termites and my new interest and my grandma...not much else is new. Oh oh...I'll be moving in February, not sure exactly where but it will be in California. Right now I'm in San Diego, but we'll be moving out of county...not the nicest place here and its way too expensive. We may move beginning of February but probably will end up being either in mid-Feb or more likely near the end of Feb.
