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Post by TenebrousNova on Jul 27, 2016 17:30:14 GMT
Here's the bustling surface. The main nest entrance is enormous and looks like a gaping maw in the earth. Yesterday I filled up their seed pot again because, believe it or not, they had emptied the whole thing in less than 24 hours. Here you can see that they've 2/3 emptied it already. This vast, blurry, poorly photographed white mass takes up about a third of the surface area on the bottom of the tank. It is the colony's main brood chamber and presumably where the queen spends most of her time.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jul 28, 2016 9:56:23 GMT
Woke up earlier to find about 15 escapees running around my room, one in my sister's room and one in the downstairs hallway. I put them back and soon discovered the reason why when I saw a group of workers putting the finishing touches on a dirt bridge across the vaseline layer. It looks as though the lid isn't properly airtight and there's a small gap right underneath it that they can squeeze through with no difficulty. Tomorrow when I'm working at the pet shop I'll see if I can get a more suitable tank for them, we do sell a few with airtight lids. Just apply some mesh or something to the slits in the lid and it should be fine. The fun part will be the painstaking process of picking up each individual worker and placing them in their new home, all the while slowly digging into the nest, ensuring no one gets squashed and enduring the wrath of the majors and super-majors which will undoubtedly be guarding their mother. I did this with my old Messor colony and the process took over six hours...it was a much smaller colony too.
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Post by Wood~Ant on Jul 28, 2016 10:32:23 GMT
I would suggest you do the move outdoors and use a big ground sheet, as that way you will see any escaping ants better. You will find the deeper you go the more supers there are, so you may need a large plastic scoop spoon to transfer the nest soil once you've removed the central stone which covers the main brood chamber. This is most likely where the queen will be?
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jul 28, 2016 13:30:43 GMT
Thank you for the advice. I'll keep the stone, they seem to like it and it probably helps reinforce their nest. I'm a bit worried at how I'd retrieve the brood because they're so fragile, especially the pupae. I have another day to think about how I'll plan the move anyway.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jul 28, 2016 14:14:58 GMT
I've run out of waxworms. At first I thought I'd be out of food to offer the colony (Crickets are out too) but then I remembered the substrate in the waxworm pots is bran flakes. I sprinkled some inside the Messor tank and they took an immediate liking to it. They took the flakes into the nest and are out again looking for more.
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Post by Black Ant on Jul 28, 2016 17:30:49 GMT
Good luck with moving such a massive colony, I don't envy you as they can bite very hard.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jul 28, 2016 20:36:58 GMT
Good luck with moving such a massive colony, I don't envy you as they can bite very hard. Oh, I've already been caught by a major. I had to sort of poke her in the face to make her let go and the media workers also pack quite a nip! My strategy for the super-majors will probably be to pick them up and get them in the new tank before they have a chance to implant their jaws in my fingers. The Messors do love to run all over my fingers with their jaws open when I'm cleaning their tank/topping up the seed pot but they take several seconds to find that perfect spot to bite down. When the majors do it you can feel their jaws scraping along your skin as they move. The super-major I photographed on the previous page did open her jaws in a display of aggression when I picked her up, but she was pretty young and seemed more concerned with running off. When I encounter her again she'll probably have a different attitude. I think Wood counted nearly 30 of them last time he moved this colony. Wonder how many I can expect.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jul 31, 2016 16:03:03 GMT
I have just found what I thought to be a dead super-major on the surface, then I realized her head is too small. It's a dead queen. However, her head isn't red but more of a dark orange colour which makes me think she was an alate (Although I don't see any wings). What do you think? My theory is that this colony has produced one or more infertile queens (Which has happened before according to Wood) and the colony has turned on her. Alternatively, I'm wrong and this is the colony's queen (I really really hope not). Tomorrow I'm carrying out the colony's move into another tank so I should be able to verify this for myself. The tank is a little smaller but it does have a better fitting lid. Just waiting for the gauze I ordered to turn up tomorrow morning so I can finish reinforcing the lid.
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Post by Wood~Ant on Jul 31, 2016 16:55:11 GMT
It is very difficult to say at this stage, but I hope she isn't the old queen as I don't think they produced any alates this year in her colony. It will be a sad day if it does turn out to be her, but you will find that out if you move the colony into a new nest?
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Post by TenebrousNova on Aug 1, 2016 18:28:36 GMT
The company who I ordered the gauze from let me down and gave me this big mesh with gaping square holes that an Atta queen could probably fit through rather than the fine metal mesh I wanted. I proceeded anyway, improvising with tape to cover most of the weak points in the lid. The move went quite well until I reached the central stone under which the colony rests...loads of biting and because the lower chambers were drier and very crumbly, I was forced to dig out most of the workers and brood. A few of the super-majors managed to bite me. They do not have orange heads but ruby red ones. From then on it was very, very slow work double checking to ensure I hadn't thrown any workers or brood away with the old soil. Then I saw a rather large ant reverse her way out of the main brood chamber: the ancient matriarch of the colony herself. I put her in the new tank and she vanished within several seconds, hiding under the rock. It's very nice to know that she is still alive! I won't bore you with the details of the constant biting and painstaking sifting through soil but finally I got them all in there. Unfortunately I underestimated how much extra soil I'd need to add to the tank to avoid picking up and potentially damaging the brood, so it's very high. Hopefully once the digging is well underway the soil level will lower a bit. Very long and stressful exercise, but it's done now. I actually found that the best way to gather the workers quickly was to let them all run onto my hand. Although the majors and super-majors gave a sharp pinch (And didn't want to let go!) it wasn't that bad.
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Post by Jenny on Aug 1, 2016 18:33:21 GMT
A big relief So glad, I was worried when I saw the previous one and wondered if it was due to tunnel collapse with the new soil being topped up.
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Post by Wood~Ant on Aug 1, 2016 18:42:35 GMT
Yes, that is most definitely the old lady alive and well.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Aug 1, 2016 23:19:05 GMT
The surface is absolutely chaotic with the colony's activity. Workers are somehow navigating underneath the layers of tape and escaping the tank that way...sneaky girls. I have decided to place the tank in a moat to discourage this behaviour until I can correct these flaws, but the workers insist on diving in. I've resuscitated most of these would-be swimmers by placing them on a tissue until they dry out and start moving again- ants can survive for quite a long time underwater. I once bought a Lasius flavus queen who had been in a flooded test tube for who knows how long, but she woke up again when I left her out to dry, over half an hour after I presumed her dead on arrival. A few workers actually managed to swim across and to freedom. Unfortunately I do have to sleep at some point so I can't rescue all the Messors who take a dip...tomorrow I will take a trip to the hardware shop and see if I can rectify the issue once and for all. Any further advice in the meantime would be very welcome because I'd rather this colony didn't drown itself. Also, during the move I didn't find any other infertile queens, winged or otherwise. No drones either. I wonder how long that dead queen had been around for? Probably not long since she seemed rather pale.
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Post by Black Ant on Aug 3, 2016 11:21:47 GMT
Good to hear the old queen is alive and well, the one you found dead must have been a usurper which the colony killed off.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Aug 5, 2016 19:39:48 GMT
Attempting to move the last workers into the nest (Escapees I had to house in the old tank) and escape proof the new one has been a nightmare but I think I've done it now. Up until today they have spent the week living under a layer of a clingfilm for a "lid" with a few little air holes. It looked terrible so I'm glad it looks somewhat normal now. I spent this afternoon carefully sticking ultrafine metal mesh to the lid with industrial grade tape. I had to do a lot of weeding in there but they were somewhat well behaved...until I finished moving the workers that is. Then they happened to find a tiny flaw in my lid reinforcements and it became an hour-long battle to apply tape on that part of the lid whilst dozens of workers charged out. There is a large brood chamber at the bottom of the tank, but it's heavier than the last one and I couldn't get a clear photo. I did get a photo of a major pupa being warmed on the rock, however! I propped the old tank lid at an angle with the light on so they can still warm their brood on the surface. I was still finding workers in my room an hour after those events. I believe it's affecting my sanity because I keep seeing little dark flickers of movement in the corner of my eye and thinking it's another escaped worker. You'll probably be reading about it in the news later next week...the tragic case of a young man institutionalized, confined to a padded room where he mutters incessantly about "the ants" and "they're getting out".
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