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Post by tatufmetuf on May 26, 2018 12:24:17 GMT
Hello ! I will update my three Lasius colonies here. I'm a noob so any advice would be greatly appreciated. 17-05 /2018 Got my ants ! 1 Lasius niger queen alone with cocoons.
1 Lasius niger with 4 workers
1 Lasius niger with 8 workers.
The queen of the bigger colony seems to have a malformation or something broken at the abdomen I think. The testube has mold.
18-05
I've provided the 2 colonies who have workers with small hunting area.
The single queen has 15 pupae with cocoons and she ate a bit of honey. The two colonies had 2 or 3 small mosquitoes that I killed for them in my bedroom, the bigger colony was pretty excited, they were 6 workers in the foraging area (normally there is only one) they have managed to put a piece of one mosquito inside their testube next to their larvae.
20-05
The smallest colony had a 5th worker,he is still grey white. I've provided the two colonies with protein jelly but they do not seem to be interested
The bigger colony :
the small one :
22-05
the bigger colony with 8 workers now has 9 ! I provided the queen who is alone with protein jelly but she didnt seem interested. they are still one at a time in the foraging area.
23-05
The queen wich is alone has now a big batch of tiny eggs.
I removed jelly from all colonies, apparently they werent hungry 24-05
the smallest colony with 5 workers blocked the entrance of the tube with a piece of mosquito. They seem to do fine there is a big batch of fresh eggs at least 15-20, a bunch of larvae and some pupae that are yellow. the other colony seem to be worse there is mold on the cotton of the tube near the water. the test tube is also dirty. not too bad I think but definetely way more than the other ones where their set up is clean white. they seem more scared than the other colony when I looked at them. I do not know if its related to the injury of the queen (I'm not even sure she has an injury). in this picture we do not see well the mold but half the cotton is black and moldy. But the workers come out more often there is only one in the hunting area but the small colony I dint see any today
25-05
from what I've counted the bigger colony now are 11, the other one 5. their set up : 26-05 Update the small colony: are those eggs on the cotton ? it seems they made themselves a floor with the cotton above their heads so they can store more eggs I added brood from my garden in the colony that has 11 workers, something like 37 or 38 pupae. the pupae are quite larger than my tiny workers, they barely can hold the pupae.
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Post by tatufmetuf on May 26, 2018 12:31:37 GMT
I made them two nests in Ytong block. one who is an all in one with foraging area on top and the other one a big nest.
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Post by Wood~Ant on May 26, 2018 14:57:18 GMT
Good journal with nice clear photos. You should find Lasius niger easy ants to keep as they adapt to life in almost any type of nest. Not fussy about what they eat either.
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Post by tatufmetuf on May 26, 2018 17:14:57 GMT
Thanks a lot ! photos made with my phone Lumia 650
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Post by tatufmetuf on May 27, 2018 22:30:41 GMT
The queen that was alone now has 3 workers with her ! One is black, she must be the first worker.
The other two are brown. One must be just born cause she only moves when an other ant or the queen touches her.
EDIT 28/05 : they are 4 workers now ! three are black and one brown, ill take pictures when I connect them to their foraging area
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Post by tatufmetuf on May 28, 2018 12:38:42 GMT
The small colony who had 5 workers has now 7 workers ! and a lot of eggs, they grow pretty fast !
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Post by tatufmetuf on Jun 2, 2018 23:13:39 GMT
Update on the colony that was brood boosted : their test tube had mold so I made them a plaster nest, they began to move in 2h ago. the queen just moved in Ill make photos of their set up and new nest One brood from the brood bood hatched and something white came out, not moving since 2 days. doesnt know what it is, ill try to take a good pic.
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Post by tatufmetuf on Jun 3, 2018 19:24:24 GMT
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Post by tatufmetuf on Jun 3, 2018 21:07:00 GMT
One of the colony the one that came with 4 workers now has 9 workers
The colony with the new plaster nest are 12.
The queen that I got alone now has 11 workers !
I over humidificated the plaster nest as you see on the picture, ill add less water next time. I've never seen an ant in the second foraging area.
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Post by tatufmetuf on Jun 8, 2018 12:10:32 GMT
I just bought a Myrmica rubra colony They will replace one of my Lasius niger colonies, I'll give one to seomeone if I find someone interested or ill put them in the wild
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Post by tatufmetuf on Jun 18, 2018 20:05:32 GMT
One of the Lasius niger colonies has so much eggs ! I've never seen that there is at least 100 eggs ! she has like 15-20 workers, they ate 3 tiny crickets The other Lasius colony has plenty of cocoons, they are also 15-20 workers but there will soon be more ! They ate 2 tiny crickets (I've bought one pack of size 2, they seem to love them) The Rubras ate a freshly killed fly and also two frozen crickets, but they didnt took them from the plate I had to feed them myself and they took it, they are very chill and don't get easily scared The Formica Cunicularia queen is fine, the pink on her test tube seem less visible, she didnt want a small cricket but there is at least 8 eggs so I'm happy I have connected her tube to another tube with clean tube and a small piece of wine bottle cap (new one, unused) to form an entrance. You can quite easily create nesting chambers in the test tube with it Messor barbarus queen has been shipped today from Germany with the Lasius flavus queen !
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Post by tatufmetuf on Jun 21, 2018 14:14:43 GMT
The queens arrived today ! (the top one is the one I caught)
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Post by tatufmetuf on Jun 25, 2018 20:16:37 GMT
You can see with the middle one (Messor barbarus) that she has some very small seeds in her tube, they were provided by ants-kalytta. the queen seem to enjoy them but she went for the usual drop of honey to help her laying eggs She already has between 5-10 eggs. The top one (Formica cunicularia) is fine too. For some reason she puts the eggs where the cotton is pink so I decided to let her that tube. She has also eggs maybe 10. The bottom one is Lasius flavus she has also some eggs I woud say 5. but her cotton isn't wet all the way trough so I'm concerned with her ability to drink.. I tried to make her move to another test tube but she doesn't want to. So I placed a bit of damp cotton in her tube but this doesn't last long so I don't know what to do. The two colonies of Lasius niger are doing well, every time I check them I see one or two grey ant that just were born. The Myrmica rubra I don't know they are nesting in the soil below the cactus who is aparently some king of aloe vera someone said to me. I only see one ant constantly foraging and building tunnels under the blue stone.So I can't tell if the queen is alive or laying. when I got her she had only one egg that was in one ant mouth all the time. She was too precious to lose, it was funny to see one ant only caring for the egg alone in the test tube even after everyone moved out I've seen also two times two or three ant going high on top of the cactus for no apparent reason. PS: I hope I didn't down one rubra I heard a little scream when I watered the soil. I might also be too paranoiac.. ^^
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Post by tatufmetuf on Jun 25, 2018 20:18:25 GMT
Some ants must have died because the Lasius niger colonies seemed to stay around 10-15 workers even appearing to lose some then now getting larger. But I didn't saw any dead ant.
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Post by tatufmetuf on Jun 26, 2018 18:26:47 GMT
I caught today two cunicularia queens but they seem less fat than the other I have and they still have their wings so I will see if they lay or not. I caught what appears to be a Lasius niger queen too
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