Mulder's Camponatus novaeboracensis

[mulder]

May 20, 2015

Found three Camponatus novaeboracensis queens in a felled tree in Chippewa County, Michigan. Two had no brood, the third had three larvae. The queen with larvae was missing a leg and had a malformed gaster. I collected some of the decaying wood to help them acclimate to their new homes. I offered a drop of THA ant juice to each of them. Here’s the damaged queen.



May 23, 2015

The damaged queen died. Of the remaining two, one has settled into the queen chamber in her growth chamber, barricading the entrance with wood I gave her. The other still races around wildly. I gave the three larvae to the calmer queen. If she didn’t adopt them, at least they’d be protein.



May 25, 2015

The adoption was successful! Two larvae were much larger, and they have now spun cocoons. The queen is still carefully tending the smaller larva.



I don’t have any more pictures, and my notes were lost in a forum closure, but both queens are now tending eggs of their own. I stopped offering food to the one when she barricaded herself in. I kept feeding the other until she moved her wood to block the entrance and laid eggs. Since then, the last adopted larva has cocooned. I’m not sure when they’ll pupate, but the cocoons are smooth and the coloring seems healthy. It’s all a matter of waiting (I'm)patiently now.

[mulder]

I recovered the rest of my notes on these queens!

June 01, 2015

She definitely let the larger two larvae pupate. She's been tending the last larvae and it's doubled in size since I gave it to her. She's even laid six or seven eggs of her own.




She shredded the bit of wood I put in there and blocked off her chamber, so I just check on her once a day. She's on a shelf open to daylight, and she goes on alert when I pick up the chamber, but she doesn't freak out and race around in distress.




The flightly queen had laid her eggs by June 01 as well.  I'm going to move them into a warmer room.  It's only about 17C where they are now.  I think they'll be happier next to the aquarium where it's closer to 20C.

[mulder]

The two slightly older pupae eclosed June 26. They are pretty clueless. They haven't tried exiting the chamber, so I put a drop of syrup in there with them. The queen drank it all then shared it with the workers. I also found a third queen this past weekend. She was wandering wingless on the road, so I scooped her up and brought her home. She's still settling in.

[mulder]

The third pupa eclosed a few days after the last post, but the ant now seems to be missing. I think it may have been eaten. I've been pretty hands-off all colonies lately, and the queen with two workers is tending a few larger larvae and a small ball of eggs.

Queen #2, who laid eggs on June 1, died this weekend. She was in a petri-dish set up, and one of her eggs had hatched into a larva. I dumped queen #3 and her newly laid pile of eggs into the set up last night. I put it back in the dark cabinet, but I'll check on her this weekend to see what she decided to do. Hopefully, I'll have time to take some pictures this weekend again.