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Post by Deleted on Jul 31, 2013 17:19:54 GMT
Wow! That colony is growing fast!
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djant
Nurse Ant
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Post by djant on Aug 2, 2013 15:36:15 GMT
Friday 2nd August 2013 These ants have been very busy the past couple of days. They spent the entire evening on Wednesday slicing up the waxworm piece and taking it into test tube. On Thursday I attached the ytong, and in minutes workers were inside. They spent most of last night moving in the brood and the queens. The colony has quite a bit of space to grow in the ytong, and I’m pleased that there seems to be a lot of well fed brood, with a few dozen pupae and what could be a hundred larvae. There are also a few clusters of eggs. Last night I fed this colony a moth, of which all that remained this morning was the wings. Two more dead males were found in the midden, although there are still two present in the ytong. Unfortunately another dead worker was also found, although the presence of several callow ants in the nest (one of which I witnessed being brought into the world) more than makes up for it. I am going away for a week, so the colony will have a good opportunity to really settle into their new home. I am hopeful of some more eggs when I return! I have left them with a large test tube of water, a waxworm and a drop of honey water. I hope this will be enough to keep them going! My main concern is water. The ytong does not stay damp long, so the nest might get quite dry, although as they have a water source, and in the wild droughts are an occurrence, I expect them to be fine.
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Post by Wood~Ant on Aug 2, 2013 19:06:51 GMT
If the Ytong seems to be getting very dry, maybe you could stand it in a plastic tray with about an inch of water and let it soak for an hour or two.
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djant
Nurse Ant
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Post by djant on Aug 10, 2013 12:57:30 GMT
Saturday 10th August 2013 I’ve returned home to find these ants obviously very thirsty, as there were perhaps 20 workers gathered at the cotton wool in the test tube. I’ve rehydrated their nest and the ants seem very happy about it! There are no pupae remaining in this colony, although there are perhaps 20 very light workers inside the nest and several callows when I looked into the ytong. There is also a lot less larvae, although there seems to be no loss in the amount of egg clusters. I am not sure why the brood has decreased in this colony, although I imagine it was the limited food and humidity in the past week. Another dead male was brought out, as well as three workers while I’ve been away. I’ve fed these ants a piece of sausage, a waxworm and a few drops of honeywater. They have carried the waxworm into the nest, and over the past few hours have had a good go at the sausage. The ants have also enjoyed the honeywater, with 2 of the queens also coming out of the nest to inspect the food. I cannot tell if it is the same two queens that seem to be so active, although I have not been able to count more than 5 queens at a time in this colony, although it could be completely possible that there is a sixth hidden under a mass of workers.
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djant
Nurse Ant
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Post by djant on Aug 13, 2013 10:35:58 GMT
Tuesday 13th August 2013 Yesterday I fed these ants a drop of honeywater and a piece of chicken. They lapped up the honey water as they always do, and I came back several hours later to find the chicken gone, it having been cut up into little pieces to feed the brood. There are a lot more eggs in the colony now and the larvae are growing quickly. No new pupae yet, although this could take a while. Last night I also found a huge dead moth which the cat had brought in, which soon became ant food, although some of them ran so quickly up the glass that I had a couple of escapees before I could put the food in! They crawled all over the moth, which dwarfed them and started to dismember it. However, this morning the moth was mostly intact, so maybe they couldn’t penetrate its’ shell or they’d had their fill.
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djant
Nurse Ant
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Post by djant on Aug 19, 2013 6:18:49 GMT
Monday 19th August 2013 Over the past week this colony has been completely ravenous! I bought some crickets from the local shop, of which they have had six over the past few days, along with a couple of waxworms and some honeywater. There seems to be more brood all the time including a steadily growing pile of pupa in the colony as well. I’ve also noticed that the bulk of the colony, including the queens and brood, seems to rotate to different chambers in the ytong during the day.
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djant
Nurse Ant
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Post by djant on Aug 27, 2013 1:37:51 GMT
Tuesday 27th August 2013 The colony has continued to eat any insect I’ve placed into the foraging area (on one day alone they ate 6 crickets), although they seem to be not so keen on honeywater lately. I also gave them a small piece of sponge cake, which they cut into small pieces are carried off into the nest. There are now perhaps around 30 pupa and at least double that in larvae. There seems to be less eggs, although the ants are often so densely packed I may be unable to see them. There are still 2 males walking around the nest, and I wonder how much longer they will last!
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Post by Joona on Aug 31, 2013 16:43:13 GMT
Mine have a few males in there too, and how cool is it when they swarm! I feed mine one fat cricket a day at the moment. I've recently started to take its jumping legs off and slightly daze it, they go mental when the food is still alive, it's fascinating to watch.
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djant
Nurse Ant
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Post by djant on Sept 1, 2013 0:28:01 GMT
Mine have a few males in there too, and how cool is it when they swarm! I feed mine one fat cricket a day at the moment. I've recently started to take its jumping legs off and slightly daze it, they go mental when the food is still alive, it's fascinating to watch. I've found they went nuts when I gave them a live wax worm, I gave them a cricket today that was a bit dazed (having been chilled in the fridge) but they'd swarmed it before it could wake up. Mine seem to love ham and chicken also. I've been feeding them 2-3 crickets every other day, although that might become everyday from now on. How big is your colony?
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Post by Joona on Sept 1, 2013 8:43:27 GMT
It's about 200+ it was a eBay colony like yours it only had two queens though, it was a birthday gift for my son. I've noticed a bigger size cricket will last them 2 days before they loose interest in them, and a small one will last a few hours before its stripped. Does this species mate with its own queens?
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djant
Nurse Ant
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Post by djant on Sept 1, 2013 13:55:03 GMT
I think they do - so if we're lucky and get some alates next year I suppose there's a chance that we could end up with more queens.
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djant
Nurse Ant
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Post by djant on Sept 9, 2013 8:43:56 GMT
Monday 9th September 2013 The past couple of weeks these ants have been very hungry! Currently they are eating 2-3 mealworms every other day. However, they have not touched any of the honeywater I have given them over the past two weeks, which is unusual. But as for insects, anything goes; I’ve even fed them the odd crane fly which they quickly gobbled up. Their water reservoir is nearly out, so I filled up a spare test tube and put it in the tank. The next day, the ants had started digging as the water had soaked into the sand! At the moment there are multiple little ant hills, although the tunnels cannot be very deep and the sand will soon dry up. A particular queen was also very curious the other day, and got wacked by a thrashing waxworm when she came to inspect the prey. The brood are developing well, with a couple more callow workers every day. There are maybe 50 pupa in this colony and more than that in larvae. There’s also at least a couple hundred eggs.
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Post by Wood~Ant on Sept 9, 2013 9:19:45 GMT
There’s also at least a couple hundred eggs. Don't worry if these hatch into larvae but do not develop into pupae, as these ants tend to over winter larval brood in the nest which will turn into pupae next spring.
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djant
Nurse Ant
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Post by djant on Sept 18, 2013 18:47:28 GMT
Wednesday 18th September 2013 I wasn’t able to take these ants to university so I can’t report much on them. They were doing fine when I left, and had started digging in the sand in the foraging area. There was about 50 workers in this new nest at any one time, so maybe is the establishment of a satellite nest as seen in nature.
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djant
Nurse Ant
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Post by djant on Sept 30, 2013 15:02:24 GMT
Monday 30th September 2013 I came home briefly over the weekend to find these ants ravenous! They ate a large piece of chicken and swarmed over a drop of honeywater. I will move them into my new home hopefully within the new two or three weeks.
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