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Post by Thebugman on Apr 6, 2015 0:50:23 GMT
I obtained this colony on the 5th of September 2014 from ants Kalytta and the colony consisted of around 15 workers. Although this species is supposed to remain active all year round, the colony did little except collect a few seeds and increase their number to around 20. Since I obtained this colony around 5 of the workers have died; but on the plus side they have raised 3 very impressive majors, the first of which eclosed in early February, and since then the colony has being thriving. They number now around 25 workers and that number increases by 1 or 2 every few days, as I regularly see pale ants when I have a gander at the colony. The ants seem to be mainly nocturnal but I will sometimes see the occasional forager parading round outside of their nest, any disturbance to any ant will cause her to flee and hide, however this may change as colony numbers increase. The ants seldom take seeds or insects I offer them, however I would imagine that the brood get enough protein from the huge stockpile of seeds within the nest. The nest itself is in a glass aquarium which is protected by a large layer of ptfe and talcum powder; these sisters are not the most skilled of climbers. The ytong nest is placed against the glass, which the ants must like as when I first put them in their foraging area, they moved in minutes after. The success of this nest is partially due to a fluke design, I placed a cotton ball to block up a hole at the top of the nest, which I then realised was great for watering the colony; and whenever I water the cotton wool, a dozen ants will gather round with the queen and drink the water. To make the nest level, I had to place wood chips to the level of the entrance of the nest; and then place a sheet of torn bin-bag over the wood chips which I then covered in sand. Unfortunately today I discovered that the ants had found a hole and had begun launching foraging expeditions into the wood chips; so they are currently under house arrest and I have retrieved 9 workers from the wood chips, which must be all there is; I will leave it overnight to see if anymore ants venture to the surface, and if not I will begin fixing the problem. The overall characteristic of the species seems to be shy and hard-working; and they didn't used to mind me taking off the cardboard and peering into the nest; but since the majors have arrived they are less welcoming to an occasional glance. The ants appear to be more sensitive to vibrations than than anything else, so I take extra care when I am near their nest. The ants will not take anything other than seeds; I have tried chocolate, crickets, mealworms, waxworms apples and honeywater, but they just love grass seed and niger seed. I also always see some ant bread in the nest of this colony, and I enjoy watching the workers pass it from ant to ant. The queen, like her daughters, is a solid black colour with a hint of brown around the edges of her body, but she has part of one of her rear legs missing; but this does not seem to have any negative effect, and gives her a bit of character. Here are some pictures (sorry for the quality) imagesComments may go here queenant.proboards.com/thread/9477/thebugmans-messor-meridionale-journal-comments
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Post by Thebugman on Apr 15, 2015 22:25:23 GMT
Since the last update, the colony moved out of their y-tong nest and into the test-tube that contained their water; I took this as an opportunity to clear out the nest and the rest of the tank, so I blocked off the test-tube with a cotton bud, and replaced the substrate inside of the nest. I also created a new hole at the top of their nest and put a cotton bud inside of it, and after wetting the cotton bud the colony moved straight back into the nest, and then began exploring the newly replaced substrate. Since the clean out foraging activity has increased and they took a dead cricket into the nest a couple of days ago, and today I found its remains dumped outside of the nest.
Colony numbers has increased by a couple of workers, and I have not seen any dead ants since the previous update.
(and I will try to fix the pictures, but they work for me, so I will try a different website when I get time)
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Post by Thebugman on Apr 28, 2015 20:04:01 GMT
This colony becomes ever more aggressive as the numbers increase. When they were smaller, the workers would flee into cover if there were any vibrations or when I placed a dead insect near them, however now the workers will attack anything that they think is too close to their nest. There are now only about 2 callow ants left, and the colonies brood pile now has around 10 larvae and 20 eggs. I will on occasion see the ants stood next to a dead cricket I have left for them, however they seldom drag them into the nest, so I wonder if they feed off of them outside of the nest?
Every time I look at this colony there seems to be more workers than I remembered, and I have not spotted a dead ant in a while, so the workers must live a good few months before they die.
I hope to have this colony reach 50+ workers by July, and if current progress continues, hopefully they will exceed that number.
I have taken pictures and videos but they are on an old phone, so I do not know if they are worth uploading?
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Post by Thebugman on Apr 29, 2015 18:52:26 GMT
I have fed the colony some fresh cricket black cricket legs, a brown cricket, and some spiders legs, but they have yet to find these. I am also going to throw in a dead bluebottle that my Formica Sanguinea wouldn't eat, as they seem to love flies. Today when I was looking at the colony I noticed that there was a major pupa, and a large larva which will probably become a major as well, when this happens it will take the total count of majors in the colony to 5. Instead of constantly laying eggs like my Pheidole queen does, this queen seems to lay her eggs in batches, and in the colony currently there is one batch of eggs (around 10), 1 batch of small larvae (around 10) and 3-4 large larvae/pupa.
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Post by Thebugman on Apr 29, 2015 20:36:25 GMT
I just took a look at the colony and all of the food I offered earlier is now inside of the nest. The cricket torso is being dismembered by a major and a media worker, and the spiders legs were in possession of one of the minor workers, who dumped them near the nest entrance.
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Post by Thebugman on May 2, 2015 19:08:50 GMT
I have fed them several cricket legs which are now all inside the nest. One thing I have noticed with this colony is that they appear to be burying their seeds inside their nest, by bringing the dry substrate from outside and placing it over their seed pile. I think they may be doing this because their nest can get quite damp, and so by covering the seeds with dry substrate, they are less likely to sprout. I have spotted two newly eclosed workers, both small minor workers, hopefully this should mean that the major pupa will eclose later this week!
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Post by Thebugman on May 4, 2015 16:22:18 GMT
With the warm weather today, I went outside to see what dinner I could catch for my ants, and I caught several flies, four of them were fed to this colony, but have being ignored. I decided that I am now going to overfeed the colony protein in the hope that the queen will lay more eggs, as there is only a small clutch present at the moment. The ants are currently feasting on a mealworm, so it seems that with these ants, they like a different food everyday, and any new food is taken over a food they have seen before, so with this in mind, I will try to vary the food I give to them, as I seldom give them mealworms or flies. Unfortunately today there was a dead minor worker outside of their nest, which I fed to my Pheidole colony, I would assume the worker died of old age. Happily however, today in the nest I think I spotted what appeared to be a newly eclosed major worker, who must be no more than a few hours old, I would have tried to get pictures but she was very difficult to spot, so unfortunately they may have to wait. I also spotted in the brood pile pupa of minor workers that are smaller than any other minor workers currently in the colony, they almost look like nanitics, I wonder why the colony has produced these?
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Post by Thebugman on May 5, 2015 21:00:51 GMT
Trying to feed all of my ants on different food, today this colony was treated to half of a prawn, and for such a large food item it went down a treat! They must have modified their entrance to allow enough space for the prawn to get inside of the nest. The majors are cutting the prawn into more manageable chunks right now, which hopefully will be fed to the larva and the queen, so she will lay more eggs. Prawn seems like the ideal food as it is soft and easy for the ants to cut, however it may go bad quickly, but hopefully the small springtails living in the nest with the ants will take care of it before mould, but this colony seldom leaves bad food inside of the nest anyway.
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Post by Thebugman on May 7, 2015 18:35:55 GMT
Today I decided that the ants formicarium need some alterations, so I let the cotton wool dry out and the ants moved into their drinking water test-tube. I then removed their nest and modified it so the cotton at the top of the nest now has a test-tube above it, meaning that the cotton should stay hydrated for longer. Looking at the ants in the test-tube, I could see a nice brood pile, which was a nice surprise as I thought it would be much smaller. There are also a lot more workers than I thought, there must be around the 50 mark now. I cleared out another dead ant, but the number of ants in the colony is still increasing at a healthy rate. The ants have now moved back into their old formicarium and I arrived in my room the moment the queen was lead into the nest, which was a pleasant sight to see. I have fed the colony some more prawn, as they have many small larvae now which need the protein.
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Post by Thebugman on May 11, 2015 19:52:54 GMT
Today I was excited to see a new major walking round the nest, and I think it may be slightly larger than the rest of the majors. It must have being only a few hours old, as it was a pale orange colour. The larvae in this colony are now becoming fat and therefore the crickets I feed them are the largest and meatiest, as I gut load my livefood and all of my livefood is fresh and not frozen. They will also soon be enjoying some crickets that I bred myself, as I was surprised to see some pinheads in a tub I abandoned as I thought the eggs has being eaten by mites, but some survived and are now running free and growing into a future meal for this colony. Hopefully I will be able to keep a continuous cycle of this going and keep my very own mite free, chemical free cricket farm.
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Post by Thebugman on May 14, 2015 18:39:53 GMT
The other two majors will eclose in a matter of hours, there must be around 4 dark orange workers ready to eclose. The workers appear to be quite long lived, as I have had no more deaths. The queen has laid a batch of eggs (around 12). All is going well with the colony. I fed them a moth (rather strangely they wouldn't eat the wax worms, but they loved the moth, maybe the moth has more muscle than fat?) yesterday, which they dragged in within minutes and began destroying it, I enjoy watching the majors tear through the moth, you can really see why they need their big heads. The colony has being harvesting some grass seed, niger seed, and sunflower seeds. Today I fed the colony some cricket legs, which have being dragged into the nest and have also being eaten. I cannot see any of the larva, so I presume they are being kept separate from the eggs and pupa? I am now thinking that the colony may have to get fed fat crickets every couple of days so that they have enough protein to go around. I am very satisfied with this colonies progress, and this species is not supposed to hibernate (although they did last year, no eggs were laid for at least a couple of months) so I hope I am not being optimistic in them reaching 100 workers by autumn?
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Post by Thebugman on May 18, 2015 16:59:41 GMT
Today I noticed a newly eclosed worker walking around the foraging area, which I thought was strange as new workers are supposed to remain in the nest. There is now an increasing amount of pupa and larvae in the colony. Yesterday I fed the colony the largest cricket I could find, and the ants loved this. Today I decided to feed the colony some baby crickets, which I don't like doing because the crickets are only young and small, so in order to feed enough, lots of crickets must be killed. The colony was also treated to a new food, fruit flies, and by the time I had placed the fruit flies in their foraging area and gotten the crickets ready, all of the flies were already in the nest! When I placed the crickets in the foraging area, not all of them were dead, and I got to see the ants try a bit of hunting, which was very interesting to watch, as the ants had a good go at chasing down the crickets, even the newly eclosed worker joined in, however the ants weren't quite good enough yet to make a kill, in time that may change. I killed the crickets and the ants dragged them into their nest seconds after. Newly eclosed workers are appearing more frequently and after going through a small death wave there should be a population boom soon that should take their numbers up to the 65 mark, although it doesn't look like that in their nest, when I actually get to see most of the ants when I accidentally spook them, there must be around 50.
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Post by Thebugman on May 21, 2015 18:46:50 GMT
Earlier on today I fed the colony some crickets, which have now being taken inside of the nest. More eggs have being laid and more callow ants have being spotted walking around the nest. They have have dragged more seeds into the nest, all is well with this colony.
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Post by Thebugman on May 22, 2015 20:04:57 GMT
Another favourite food of this colony is fruit fly larvae, they are about the same size as the ants smaller larvae, and they are soft bodied, so they are easy for the ants to tear apart. I fed them a couple straight from the tub and they were immediately dragged into the nest. I have took a photo of this, and also the colonies complete brood pile, I wonder how many future workers are in there? Attachments:
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Post by Thebugman on May 26, 2015 21:45:01 GMT
I fed the colony a wax worm today which they are enjoying. I have removed the heat mat which sits next to their nest to prevent the ants from becoming too warm, as the warmer weather makes my room get very warm. I will put it back when the temperature gets a bit lower.
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