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Post by bobdol on Nov 5, 2011 20:40:14 GMT
The colony has moved once again into a smaller but much more humid nest! They have settled in well with both queens laying fresh eggs. One of the big larvae pupated today turning into what looks like a male although its hard to tell, the wings are definitely visable though. The male that was in the colony seems to have been canabilised as I have not seen him for weeks There is one thing worrying me though which is a large number of worker deaths. Nearly 50 over the last few days... There is a lot of pupae though and around 300 workers and 30 soldiers left so I'm not too worried. I guess its just the older generation making way.
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Post by bobdol on Nov 13, 2011 19:29:19 GMT
Sadly the death toll in this colony has been huge with the population halving, being now lower than when I first recieved these ants! However, over the last few days though they seem to have stabalised and the huge mounds of pupae and started to hatch out with callows all over the place now meaning the birth rate is now much higher than the death rate. There is also about 40 larvae around the nest as well as the large alate pupae which I think is a male. Both queens are fine and seem to be unnafected by the death toll. The other worrying thing is that foraging slowed down a lot, at one point there were no workers foraging at all although things have got better now and last night a fly was dragged into the nest. I just hope they get back to their old ways of swarming any food source placed in their vicinity and creating huge brood piles!
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Post by bobdol on Dec 11, 2011 17:48:15 GMT
This colony is now deceased... I thought things were going very well after the death rate slowed right down, fresh eggs were laid and foraging increased... But then out of the blue the workers began to turn on one of the queens, I just left them as I thought interfering would cause more damage than it would help - and I would of had to open up the whole nest to get at her (which would of been hard with over 150 angry workers. At first it was just one worker tugging at her leg and stressing her out, then more began to hassle her as the rest did nothing. I came back in the evening to find her dead and being fed to the larvae. After she died there was another population boom and things looked good again but then about a week ago I came home to find the last queen alone in the tubing connecting to the foraging area with a single dead soldier beside her. She was very distressed and could hardly walk, I have no idea if she was just ill or if she too had been attacked. I quickly got her out, putting her in a test tube with some workers that were foraging at the time (roughly 15). However she made no recovery and died after a couple of days, the workers in the test tube completely ignored her. Back in the main colony there was a large amount of larvae and pupae present and I hoped some more alates would hatch as there was a male alate and more male pupae around at the time. It was a slim chance but I thought that one of the developing larvae could be a young princess to make a new queen. But then, over the next week or so, lots of pupae were cannibalized or just killed unceremoniously and for no apparent reason. The male was also killed like the one that was around before him and the workers began to die off as well, through sickness and also fighting amongst themselves. At this point I took action and placed the remaining workers and brood in a test tube. However as the days went by the brood was not cared for and the workers slowly died until last night there were around 5 left which I mercy killed rather than let them waste away like the rest of the brood and workers. It was so sad too see this colony fall apart after it had such a promising first month... Through keeping them I have really seen what a great genus Pheidole is with such great activity and attitude.
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Post by Wood~Ant on Dec 12, 2011 8:58:19 GMT
Sorry to hear about the demise of this colony. Perhaps you could try P. pallidula next time, as although my own colony has 1 queen and the species is monogyne, they are very successful and thrive well in limited space This journal has been locked and moved.
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