[2012, Septet] Lasius flavus

[TenebrousNova]

Less than an hour ago, my Mum told me there was a nuptial flight in the back garden. A bit late, I thought. Sure enough, there were Lasius niger queens milling around. Having my share of Lasius niger at the moment, I contented myself with watching them go along their way.
I also noticed a smaller queen, which at first I thought was just a weaker lady who wouldn't be likely to succeed. Closer examination revealed that she gleamed a bronze rather than a brown/black in the sunlight, and her legs and antennae were a sort of velvety orange-red in colour.

I have very rarely found Lasius flavus in Portsmouth, so I was delighted to find a queen so close to my house! I put her in an empty Tic-Tac box with an air hole whilst I thought about what I could keep her in. Then I saw another flavus queen. And another, and some more with wings. Looking up, I saw a number of flying ants, both niger and flavus.

I'm very happy, because this means that a mature L.flavus nest is somewhere nearby and may well release alates in the years to come.

I caught seven queens in total. By the time I managed to get the seventh into the box, I could feel and hear a small, insistent 'tap-tap' as the queens moved around.

I plan to keep these queens together as a group, having had good luck so far with a trio of the same species. Even in the unlikely event of a fight breaking out, they should produce a good brood and have their first workers within the next few months if I'm lucky.

I will get a picture once I find a suitable test tube for them to live in.

---------------------------------------

I found a suitable test tube. Here is the Septet.

[Wood~Ant]

Having kept 4 flavus queens together for a period of 7 months, even when they had about 50 workers not once did they fight, neither did the workers attempt to kill a single queen. As far as Lasius species go, flavus are very tolerant of more than 1 queen in the colony

[TenebrousNova]

The foundations have been laid, so to speak.



There were no eggs yesterday. The queens are getting along fine.

[TenebrousNova]

The queens are huddled around no fewer than forty eggs.
They are taking this in their stride so far, reacting to my observation of them with a bit of head and antenna movement.

They're not very excitable, which is excellent.

[TenebrousNova]

Since I've discovered that my larger L.flavus colony is in fact alive, I gave about three of their larvae to these queens, and one pupa. That should give them a bit of a head start.

They rolled into the egg pile, I expect they'll be pleased when they notice. ;D

[TenebrousNova]

There's a lot of eggs, but I've noticed that none of them have hatched yet.
Neither has the pupa eclosed yet or the adopted larvae grown.

[TenebrousNova]

Good news, I spoke too soon in my last post. The larvae are starting to hatch out alongside a very large egg pile.
The queens are still quite big looking, thanks to their distribution of resources.

I'm checking these queens for about one minute each day, now that the eggs are hatching the founding stage should proceed without complications. Between the seven of them, this should be a breeze.

I took about five minutes to prepare to take this photo, but throughout they didn't flinch once.

[TenebrousNova]

Here's a few new pictures.



The larvae can be seen in this one:

[TenebrousNova]

Many of the larvae are now in their second instar, although there's still a lot of eggs and newborns.
This first brood should become at least forty workers if it continues to go well.

The queens still display a mild personality.

[TenebrousNova]

Meet the first young worker, who has eclosed from an adopted pupa kindly donated by the larger colony.
The larvae are rapidly approaching the pupa size too.



The poor girl is probably wondering which is the mum. ;D

[TenebrousNova]

Three of the larvae are now veiled under cocoons. The others shouldn't take long to follow suit, and hopefully there will be plenty of workers within a number of weeks.

[TenebrousNova]

There's now about twelve workers.



They are also taking honey with no problems. I think I might try them on a tiny cricket later.



The queens are active and healthy, no signs of aggression from any queen or worker.
There's still plenty of eggs, larvae and pupae.

[TenebrousNova]

Yesterday, the colony ate its first cricket.

I deliberately chose a very small one and left them to it. A few of the queens snapped half-heartedly at it, but the workers were soon climbing all over it. Now there isn't a lot of it left.

There's only a few pupae left and not many larvae, but there's still a big egg pile. I'm not planning to hibernate this colony, as I would like to get their numbers up some more. There's about twenty workers at the moment, to be honest I lost count shortly after the first lot of workers eclosed. They are shy and like to hide behind the queens.

They maintain a small midden pile right next to the test tube lid, so keeping them clean shouldn't be a problem.

[TenebrousNova]

All is still well in this little colony. They are starting on another cricket right now, with some honey on the side. There's a surprising amount of eggs, but there aren't many pupae and barely any larvae.

I expect there to be a boost in the population come Spring.

[TenebrousNova]

Workers are still eclosing, and there's still a large amount of eggs. They appear to have migrated next to the test tube lid, as the cotton is mostly black now. Hate it when that happens.
I'll keep a watch on them. The colony should be fine in a "proper" set up, but I like to keep them in a test tube until there's a minimum of fifty workers.