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Post by occultus on Jul 3, 2015 23:26:54 GMT
Looks like it could be a Solenopsis species to me. I know Hawaii has plenty of them.
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Post by occultus on Jul 3, 2015 19:37:07 GMT
We now have five eggs laid.
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Post by occultus on Jul 3, 2015 18:59:37 GMT
Solenopsis geminata - Nuptial Flight 03/07/15
I had handpicked the Queen from the wild and she has been in my care for a total of 7 months and 7 days. The colony has grown faster than anything I have ever experienced. Their appetite amazes me along with their fearless nature. It really has been an amazing experience taking care of them.
Today was a very special day for my Solenopsis geminata colony. I came home this afternoon to discover lots and lots of Queen and male Alates. The male drones were even attempting to fly outside of the nest.
I decided to try out an experiment and isolated some of the Queen alates and male drones together in the hopes that mating may take place and thus produce fertile Queens. The only reason that I'm even attempting this is because I strongly believe that my two original S.geminata Queens were sisters. They were collected in close proximity to a very large S.geminata colony which showed no aggression towards them and had winged Queens and males scuttling about among them. What I'm trying to say is that they may well have interbred among their own colony and this in turn could mean that my colony has a chance to produce fertile queens.
I have placed 20 winged Queens into separate test-tubes(no easy task, got stung allot), each of them have 3 male drones inside. I shall leave them in complete darkness for a week at around 27 Celsius and hopefully they got their Mojo working .
Who knows, I may have some colonies for sale soon guys lol that would be a first.
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Post by occultus on Jun 29, 2015 1:36:16 GMT
Happy to report that 2 eggs have been laid in total and are now being kept in the larger plant pot. On closer inspection of the photo I can now see a third egg is visible.
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Post by occultus on Jun 26, 2015 23:53:55 GMT
New nest is on hold guys. I just checked on Pandora and was overjoyed to discover that she has laid an egg in the smaller plant pot on the left. :)Yippee!
I will not be taking any photos because shes still in the plant pot and I don't want to put her off laying. Also two dead micro crickets have gone missing so I'm hoping that she has eaten.
There's still hope yet
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Post by occultus on Jun 25, 2015 18:21:25 GMT
Here is the tub that I'll be using.
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Post by occultus on Jun 25, 2015 18:04:12 GMT
She had two eggs but I can no longer see them(probably eaten). I'm actually upgrading her to a far larger set up early next week. Its going to have a huge piece of cork bark in the center to replicate a tree. This species always builds their nest at the base of trees. Also going to be using jungle vine and large branches so she can satisfy her instincts and forage high up. Hopefully she will thank me by laying some eggs for me.
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Post by occultus on Jun 25, 2015 0:21:25 GMT
Not much of an update. This colony stays very stable and still has a monstrous appetite. Here is a video of me testing their swarm responses.
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Post by occultus on Jun 25, 2015 0:13:45 GMT
This colony continues to thrive. After finding a few escaped workers downstairs near my front door I have decided to give them a bigger out world. The walls are completely covered with ptfe and seeing as this species loves to climb I put lots of sticks leaves in there.
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Post by occultus on Jun 25, 2015 0:05:46 GMT
I have completely re-renovated Pandora's enclosure. Here is a video with some nice closeups. Check out those golden hairs that cover her front legs.
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Post by occultus on Jun 7, 2015 21:47:47 GMT
Some people get all the luck!! I recall this species in my house in Cambodia. A house Gecko managed to get fried inside my electrical fly zapper. Next thing you know there's a foraging trail going down your wall. Any left out food and they were on it. I was using my ant keeping knowledge to keep them off everything. I even had a moat of oil going around the fruit bowl. They would get their moisture from the shower floor after it had been on.
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Post by occultus on May 31, 2015 23:26:02 GMT
So it begins . Be sure to get some aquarium silicon over that crack mate, I can guarantee you P.pallidula will dig and squeeze through the cotton plug. Oh hey I found that axle grease is exceptionally good at containing this species(I use it to contain my Solenopsis without a lid). My old P.pallidula colony that I donated when I left the country started with just 9 workers and after 6 months they were 2000+ strong. They also produced male drones after just 5 months. I do hope your queens are accepted. Perhaps some other keepers on this site could trade you males/queens when that time comes for your experimentation.
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Post by occultus on May 29, 2015 13:44:00 GMT
The best thing that you can do is leave her alone in total darkness for 1-2 months. Don't try to peak on her as Messor queens are very sensitive to vibration and will eat their eggs if stressed. I'm currently doing this with my Messor barbarus queen. She is inside a test-tube that is inside a woolen glove and that is inside a shoe box under my bed. I'll check on her progress on the 12/06. Leave her be and she should do well mate, too much care and she'll suffer for it.
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Post by occultus on May 29, 2015 6:18:54 GMT
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Post by occultus on May 25, 2015 19:49:48 GMT
The Colony's drinking an entire test-tube of sugar water every 3 days now. I do love this species but they really are keeping me on my feet. Looks to be about 100 of them having a drink as I type this lol. The sugar water is kept on the top of the tree like wooden root in the center of the nest so that its easily removed. I'm going to need an alternative method to this soon as I'm going to eventually get stung...allot.
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