|
Post by TenebrousNova on Apr 27, 2021 15:37:32 GMT
I ordered these queens from The Ant Lady and I am pleased with what I see. All three queens seem to be calm, healthy and have a nice egg pile. No larvae yet. When I kept a two queen colony I was astonished by how explosively fast this species grow, so why not get three this time? As always, feel free to leave comments and feedback.
|
|
|
Post by TenebrousNova on Apr 29, 2021 15:32:19 GMT
I just took this photo to better show off their egg pile. I estimate there's at least 20.
|
|
|
Post by Wood~Ant on Apr 29, 2021 15:55:31 GMT
About the same number of eggs that my 3 have. I am wondering if one queen is more dominant than the others and laying all or most of the eggs, or if all of the queens are possibly laying roughly the same equally? It will be interesting to see how big the future colony is by July or August, assuming they lay more eggs together than a single queen, as my single queen colony has already got about 70 eggs and larvae.
|
|
|
Post by TenebrousNova on Apr 29, 2021 16:55:34 GMT
About the same number of eggs that my 3 have. I am wondering if one queen is more dominant than the others and laying all or most of the eggs, or if all of the queens are possibly laying roughly the same equally? It will be interesting to see how big the future colony is by July or August, assuming they lay more eggs together than a single queen, as my single queen colony has already got about 70 eggs and larvae. My guess is that they lay them more or less equally (at least at first) so that their resources are better spread out, but I don't think we have any way of knowing. When I kept a two queen colony there were over 100 workers by the end of the year so hopefully we'll both have thriving colonies in a few months.
|
|
|
Post by TenebrousNova on May 5, 2021 16:00:12 GMT
There's no larvae yet, but it looks like they're still doing well.
|
|
|
Post by TenebrousNova on May 11, 2021 16:28:29 GMT
Nothing to report this week- the egg pile is the same as before. No larvae.
|
|
|
Post by TenebrousNova on May 18, 2021 16:18:21 GMT
Again, nothing this week. Still no larvae.
|
|
|
Post by TenebrousNova on May 25, 2021 13:21:48 GMT
It took longer than I expected but some of the eggs have finally hatched into small larvae. I suspected at first that the queens were eating the eggs and laying replacements, but I'm pleasantly surprised to see that they've actually been behaving.
|
|
|
Post by Wood~Ant on May 25, 2021 15:39:10 GMT
I have found that my 3 queens like a tiny droplet of honey water once a week , and have not eaten any of the brood. They now have a lot of eggs, growing larvae and several cocooned pupae.
|
|
|
Post by TenebrousNova on May 30, 2021 21:42:49 GMT
I have found that my 3 queens like a tiny droplet of honey water once a week , and have not eaten any of the brood. They now have a lot of eggs, growing larvae and several cocooned pupae. I took an early look at the queens earlier and offered them a small droplet of sugar water, but they showed no interest in it. They resolutely stayed with their brood. The larvae are growing rapidly! I'll offer them food again next week.
|
|
|
Post by TenebrousNova on Jun 4, 2021 17:42:06 GMT
The larvae are less than 2 weeks old and already a few of them are almost big enough to pupate! I had forgotten how absurdly fast this species grows, especially considering that most Camponotus are slow growers.
|
|
|
Post by TenebrousNova on Jun 7, 2021 14:59:58 GMT
There are already two cocooned pupae and several more larvae will soon join them. The queens still show zero interest in food. They don't even turn around to investigate the test tube being opened. Hopefully in 2-3 weeks the first workers will emerge?
|
|
|
Post by Wood~Ant on Jun 7, 2021 18:46:26 GMT
My colony of Camponotus nicobarensis has 9 workers now and they moved out of the test tube 2 days ago. Check out my video here,
|
|
|
Post by TenebrousNova on Jun 13, 2021 17:08:42 GMT
I'm very happy to say that with most of the brood now in the pupa stage, these queens are firmly on track for success. And here you can see a larvae spinning its cocoon.
|
|
|
Post by TenebrousNova on Jun 17, 2021 16:02:20 GMT
There's now 14 cocoons. Instead of sitting and waiting for their first daughters to emerge, the queens have started to lay even more eggs!
|
|