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Post by TenebrousNova on Apr 11, 2018 15:03:02 GMT
Personally I always prefer having more than 25 workers before moving them into a small formicarium, though Camponotus are a much larger species than I'm used to. I assume its an anthouse arcylic nest? It is. It's quite a decent size as well!
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Post by Wood~Ant on Apr 11, 2018 15:27:32 GMT
There are now fifteen workers! I'm not sure if I should wait until there was twenty before moving them into their new formicarium, or not. I have a colony of Camponotus cruentatus with 11 workers in an acrylic nest. It is doing fine and raising brood, so I would go for it with 15 workers as they will soon make a home and grow into a larger colony.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Apr 12, 2018 18:25:34 GMT
Here they are in their new nest!
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Post by Wood~Ant on Apr 12, 2018 21:43:29 GMT
They look good in the nest. That's a lot of healthy looking brood they've got.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Apr 16, 2018 9:39:29 GMT
Two of the nanitics appear to have vanished. Since there's no conceivable way they could've escaped and I can't see any remains, I'm assuming they died of old age and were eaten, lowering the worker count to thirteen. Still, there's nine cocoons at the moment and loads of brood, so I consider this a minor setback.
The colony seems to like their new nest. The brood is kept in three chambers, separated it seems by stages of development. The queen can be found in a different chamber at different times of the day, sometimes staying in an empty one, either alone or with a few workers attending. Perhaps she just likes the peace and quiet? There's usually at least one worker in the foraging area, as usual they've been enjoying their honey and crickets.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Apr 16, 2018 12:50:02 GMT
Well, it looks as though those workers are AWOL after all. I just found one of them sniffing around my singularis colony's formicarium! She's been returned safely back to her own colony...goodness knows how they got out, they must've done it when I briefly had the lid off to feed them yesterday.
No sign of the other worker so far but I'm keeping an eye out. Hopefully she turns up safely...and doesn't end up adorning a spider's web somewhere, such is the fate that has befallen many an escaped Messor barbarus worker.
UPDATE: Saw a worker escape and how she did it...it was my own fault. When I first received the formicarium I took it apart to clean all the layers of plastic (I read the tiny particles of sponge that I saw there can harm ants if ingested) and didn't quite snap one of the connectors at the side into place properly. This propped the nest very slightly above the base in one place, so the workers could squeeze through. Quite frankly I'm surprised they didn't take advantage of it sooner.
Rectifying it involved unscrewing it all again but surprisingly, none of the ants made a break for it when I lifted a few of the layers up to slot the connector into its correct placement. Afterwards the same escaped worker ran over there to try and use her escape route again...nice try, lady.
Moral of this story: don't be a careless arse like me.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Apr 19, 2018 22:58:54 GMT
A worker eclosed a few hours ago, so we're back to 15 workers again. The missing worker hasn't shown up still, so I'm assuming she's MIA. The colony has been eating one cricket a day so far and the brood seem to be growing quickly.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Apr 25, 2018 12:46:02 GMT
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Post by TenebrousNova on May 5, 2018 8:32:48 GMT
Worker #16 is now up on her feet. There's another 16 cocoons to go and egg laying seems to have resumed.
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Post by TenebrousNova on May 11, 2018 20:04:03 GMT
Worker #17 eclosed this morning and I believe #18 will do so sometime during the night. I gave the colony their first house fly and they seemed very confused when they found it. They eventually hauled it into the nest though, where they're nibbling at it.
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Post by TenebrousNova on May 12, 2018 0:26:22 GMT
And now there's 18 workers, as expected. Things are starting to look a little busy in there, there's still at least 16 pupae with more larvae hatching and more approaching their full size.
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Post by TenebrousNova on May 15, 2018 23:56:43 GMT
It appears that the worker population is going to increase quite a bit before long. Worker #19 eclosed in the late afternoon and two more pupae are very dark, clearly on the verge of eclosing, so there should be 21 by tomorrow morning. At the same time, more pupae are beginning to darken.
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Post by TenebrousNova on May 18, 2018 19:11:15 GMT
There are now 23 workers!
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Post by TenebrousNova on May 24, 2018 18:01:43 GMT
The worker count is now at 25 and three more cocoons are almost ready to eclose. After waiting so many months for those first larvae to develop, it's wonderful to see the colony rapidly growing.
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Post by TenebrousNova on May 26, 2018 0:49:03 GMT
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