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Post by bobdol on Sept 30, 2011 17:14:28 GMT
Yesterday I received a really fascinating colony of Pheidole indica from petergw's shop myantstore.co.uk The colony consits of well over 100 workers with loads of brood (mostly pupae) and hopefully 1 or more queens. I have not actually seen the queen yet as the veiw is so obscured by the brood and carboard:P Saying that they have now moved into the sand around the test tube, leaving it completley empty. I will have their ytong nest ready for tomorrow so hopefully they will move into this with a little encouragment. I tried to discourage them nesting in the sand by making it a really thin layer but this has not stopped these little digging machines who have already made 5 or 6 large chambers in just 24 hours. They have fed from some cake and also a fly I was also happy too see a huge male in the colony yesterday which gives me hope that there will be some mating going on so there is a few more queens:) The soldiers look really cool with huge heads however, it seems they are more looks than action as they are the first to run at any sign of trouble.
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Post by bobdol on Oct 1, 2011 17:29:24 GMT
Today I got these guys to move completely into the concrete nest. At first they were very interested and there were always 20+ workers exploring it but, they seemed reluctant to move there... So I decided too give them more incentive by covering the nest in tin foil and black card making it very dark and then placing the whole set up outside. Once outside the tunnels and chambers in the sand were illuminated a lot more and so straight away they started to move. However, once about 50 larvae and pupae had been moved though, the day became cloudy and so they stopped moving the brood. Leaving about 1/3 of the population in the ytong and the rest still in tunnels... I then decided to take the roof off the tunnels and chambers as it was all damp so came off easily. In this way I uncovered the rest of the colony in which I was very happy too see 2 big stocky queens ;D Of course after I had taken off the roof of their underground network all hell broke loose and the soldiers ran around with their jaws open for around 10 minutes whilst the workers moved the remaining brood and queens into the ytong nest. It was great fun watching the movement of the brood into the new nest as the tubing was quite long so, it offered a lot of entertainment As I type this there is still around 20 workers running around in the foraging tank looking for any brood left over, they don't seem interested in any food at the moment although this is understandable as they have bigger things to worry about. They did feed on a crane fly last night though as when I woke up all that was visible of it was a wing sticking out of one of the entry holes to the nest. The ants have occupied about 1/6 of the nest near to the entry hole, the brood count is very high being mostly pupae although there is some eggs and larvae. There is also a large amount of callows wandering around. The two queens have separated out with one staying with the lone male alate and brood/nurses whilst the other seems to have taken up with the soldiers I hope they like the concrete nest as it really does give unmatched viewing quality.
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Post by bobdol on Oct 2, 2011 9:03:18 GMT
As I type this there is around 20 workers + trying to pull a fly up the tubing. This fly was literally killed about 10 mins ago and placed in the tank a few minutes after. The reaction was really instantaneous with workers pouring down the tubing and swarming the fly. For some reason a group of around 10 workers is living under a piece of wood in the foraging tank rather than staying with the colony I have no idea why as they still seem to be freindly with the other workers although these rouge workers are trying to drag the fly under the wood rather than to the hungry larvae in the nest I am also really happy to see about 20 eggs up against the glass, they were not there yesterday and so I think they must have been laid last night by the 2 queens ;D
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Post by bobdol on Oct 3, 2011 19:57:14 GMT
Over the last 2 days the colony has consumed 1 big spider ( 3 times the size of a queen) 2 flies and a maggot. These guys are really, really hungry. I have a great system where I offer insect food to my other colonys and if they do not finish it or are not interested I just chuck it in the pheidole tank and in 10 minutes time it is normally being fed to the larvae I have noticed though that they like the food to be a bit crushed up first as, when I offered the spider at first they were not interested and only ripped off a couple of legs but, after I crushed the abdomen and head they swarmed over it. I'm putting this down to the fact that they could not get through the spiders tough skin (it was quite a plump spider). I have also noticed a huge number of callows in the nest over the last 2 days witch is not surprising looking at the amount of brood. The pile seems endless and today I was surprised as another pile seems to have come out of nowhere. They have ovbiously moved brood I could not see up against the glass as there is a few crevices. I would say the colony count is something like this- Queens-2 Soldiers- 30-40 Workers-100-120 Pupae- 60+ Larvae 80+ Eggs 80+
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Post by bobdol on Oct 4, 2011 20:48:04 GMT
This evening the workers brought in no less than 5 acorn weevil larvae. These are large maggots about the size of a Lasius niger queen. I was shocked at first when I put the first two in with a reaction of about 30 workers as well as 5 or 6 soldiers. It was great to see the soldiers out in the foraging tank as normally just the little guys come out ;D After seeing 2 go down so well I quickly placed in the rest of them as there is an abundance of these maggots at the moment. It was interesting too watch the workers feeding on the grubs in the nest as they do not seem to place the larvae on but rip the maggot apart them selves and then feed the larvae. The soldiers participate a lot in this as they can tear the food open a lot easier. One thing that is annoying though is that the queens seem to have moved into a small hole in the concrete as I can no longer see them... I'm planning on putting a heat mat on the nest when the hot weather ends though so hopefully I can attract them out by heating another part of the nest There is aslo a vast amount of eggs in the nest at the moment which can only be caused by the queens, I noticed 1 large fresh batch this morning in the new brood pile. They like too pile the pupae together but the larvae they prefer to spread all over the nest for some reason The amazing thing is that even after all these grubs there is still 3 workers looking around for more They have also been feeding reguraly from a testube filled with sugar water all though when placed in it did not get the reaction that the insects do
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Post by bobdol on Oct 7, 2011 15:48:52 GMT
Using the heatmat I managed to intice the colony to the other side of the nest. They are now occupying 3 chambers on the far side of the nest. They have split the brood up a lot and now there is around 60+ brood in one pile , 40+ in another and 20+ in the other two piles. There is also a large "egg garden" which contains probably 100+ eggs although there could easily be a lot more. It was great that they have moved as I can now see both queens who look nice and healthy. I will be away over the weekend so hopefully when I come back there will be lots of new eggs
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Post by bobdol on Oct 10, 2011 18:24:51 GMT
These ants really are quite ridiculous, even after feeding all day from a piece of cake and a mosquito, the moment I drop in some squished maggot pupae it is instantly dragged into the nest. I literally go and grab some food for myself and come back to see it magically levitating through the tubing They are so small it just looks like a big black lump heading up all by itself Anyways since I was away a HUGE amount of pupae have eclosed, for some reason there is also a lot of callow soldiers, even more than the normal worker callows, which seems strange due to the fact most of the pupa were normal workers. I'm guessing that the soldiers just take longer to darken or something. There is still loads of brood left anyways with lots of egg batches. There has been around 15 worker deaths since they arrived which is a lot smaller than the birth rate so I'm happy:) The only thing worrying me is how messy these guys are... They just dump the garbage anywhere and I have only ever seen one dead worker actually carried back out too the foraging area. Its concerning me as there is some hairy mold developing in some of the chambers
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Post by bobdol on Oct 13, 2011 17:33:30 GMT
This colony must be at around 200 workers + now since so many pupae have been eclosing. There is still around 50 pupae and 20-30 larvae left. There is also plenty of eggs and tiny larvae so the ants should just keep coming
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Post by bobdol on Oct 15, 2011 19:07:26 GMT
These girls have really been feeding tonight.
Swarming an apple core, strawberry, piece of cake and taking back 3 maggot pupae and 2 mosquito's... Their appetite is insatible...
Their is loads of new eggs in the nest as well as a huge amount of larvae and 2 big blobs of pupae ;D
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Post by bobdol on Oct 21, 2011 12:03:58 GMT
I tried this colony on a new piece of food two days ago which was some of my cottage pie, the cottage pie is actually completely meat free and made with quorn pieces so I was doubtful of whether they would like it. However, within minutes of placing a large blob in there were plenty of workers and soldiers swarming down the tubing from the nest. It is always a good sign when the soldiers come down as well as it shows they must really like the food. ;D Waking up the next day a full half of the blob had been taken up too the nest where it had been spread all over the place. I was worried about mold but it seems most of the food has actually been eaten, they have also been feeding on flies, mosquito's, maggots and sugar/honey over the last 3 days... The reaction to any sort of insect is instantaneous with workers literally pouring out of the nest to drag the insect back. All this food has had an obvious affect on the brood and the larvae is looking really well fed. There is also a couple of very fat larvae which look like soldier or maybe even reproductive larvae! The two queens are still laying nearly constantly with the egg mass becoming bigger every day.
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Post by bobdol on Oct 25, 2011 8:35:03 GMT
Doing a head count 2 days ago I counted just over 250 workers, there has been a lot of pupae eclosing which is probably responsible for this population boom. There is not so many pupae left now though (around 20-40) however their is a vast amount of larvae (nearly 100 I estimate) and also loads of eggs, about 6 batches each containing 20-40 eggs... ;D Its great to see how well they have settled in and they have been feeding from dead millipede, flies , maggots, pizza, honey, and sugar water over the last 4-5 days. I am going to move this colony into a different design of AAC nest (aerated autoclaved concrete eg. Ytong) that is more compact, lightweight and with a better watering system as at the moment only the top 1/3 of the nest is humid. The new AAC nest will also be more suited to the Pheidole size as at the moment one chamber in their nest can accommodate 200-300 ants easily and a single short tunnel holds nearly all the pupae. The new nest will have many more tunnels and chambers but all at a much smaller scale to give the ants more of a feeling of security and also too give better viewing quality. Thanks for reading.
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Post by bobdol on Oct 27, 2011 10:47:16 GMT
I have now attached the new nest and the workers are gingerly exploring the tubing connecting it to there current nest. I have placed the heat mat over the new nest and also made it nice and humid whilst letting the old one dry out to try and help them move. Hopefully they will make the move soon After taking the heat mat away the workers moved a lot of brood around and now I can once again see a very large larvae present. It is definitely a reproductive larvae as it dwarfs all the pupae around it. It is extremely well fed, easily the biggest larvae I've ever seen. There could be more but I cannot see all the brood that well as they have piled sand everywhere There is still lots of other brood around and they have been feeding from all sorts of things. I saw the best reaction yet 2 nights ago when I dropped in a frozen crane fly. It was found immediately and within 10 minutes it was literally covered in ants, easily 40 ants came out too drag it back in including about 5-6 big soldiers who cut it apart. It was quickly dismembered so it could be carried up the tubing and not a single piece was left behind. The wings and legs were even carried up although the ants don't actually seem to have any interest in eating them now ;D
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Post by bobdol on Oct 27, 2011 13:09:06 GMT
Here is a picture of the main chamber. Its very bad quality and details cannot be made out but it shows the brood and workers spread out! The white specks on the glass above the entrance to the tunnel are egg batches and to the right and below pupae and larvae. There is also more larvae spread across the chamber that you cannot see due too the poor quality;( You may be able to spot one of the queens in the top right if you look hard enough:)
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Post by bobdol on Oct 28, 2011 10:57:57 GMT
Most of the colony has now moved out of the old nest and into the new one, they did this overnight as I hoped they would. There is still a few workers and soldiers loitering in the old celcon nest but the queens and brood are now all in the bottom 4 chambers of the new nest:)
Once I have sorted the set up out properly and got rid of the old nest I will try to make a video on their foraging and nest activities as I've just found my video camera actually gets some nice close ups:)!
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Post by bobdol on Oct 29, 2011 16:53:35 GMT
These guys have settled in well occupying 4 chambers in the moistest part of the nest. I had some problems with humidity so have just placed a plastic tray filled with water underneath so that water is just absorbed upwards through the nest:)
There is actually three reproductive larvae in the nest now although one is less developed than the other two. The workers groom then constantly and had a lot of trouble dragging them into the new nest due to their huge size;)
The 2 queens look great and move around the tunnels and chamber confidently. I'm not sure if any new eggs have been laid but I'm not worried as there is plenty of brood in the nest and the number of workers grows daily. I fed them two wasps yesterday and some maple syrup today. They have devoured one of the wasps in the nest but the other is in a separate chamber and has not been taken apart although it has had about 5 works and 2 or 3 soldiers tearing at it all day:P
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