Fleck's Pheidole sp. Colony Journal.

[fleck]

This is a journal of my Pheidole sp. colony. Don't know exact species...

History:
Started with five queens captured in December 2011. They carried on nicely, all laying eggs and taking care of each other. I also found out that one of the queen only had 2 ( or was it 3? ) legs, but they all went along well. After hitting the around 30 workers mark, I transferred them into a new set up. A vertical CD-casefilled with dirt, standing in the middle of a small container which serves as their foraging area. I also had a moat surrounding that, as I didn't know olive oil cold be used as a barrier then.

1 queen ( not the one with missing legs) died the day after they moved in, drowned in the moat... Well, after that, I regretted moving them in there. The were small enough to be hidden completely. So I lost track of the colony's progress during that time. Around April 2012, I managed to confirm 1 major while feeding them. Was so excited! The majors during feeding time increased throughout that month.

In June 2012, I made my first plaster nest and moved them in. It was a long process, and I had to force them to move in the end. When they moved, I managed to confirm 2 queens. The other two, including the one with missing legs, didn't make it... Apart from the two queens, there were 9 major workers, and around 100 minor workers, along with tons of brood of various stages.

Nearing the end of June 2012, disaster struck. I woke up one morning to find dozens of dead workers littering the foraging area. That night, there was around 100 dead minor workers, and 1 dead major worker. A few died in the following days, but luckily, the 2 queens recovered from a few days of being weak, and begin pumping out eggs again. I think the likely problem was a piece of watermelon, which might have been sprayed with pesticide before. I did wash it, and I gave them a piece from the middle of the watermelon...

Now:
Back to the present. They've been living in the plaster set up, which is starting to get dirty, for 5 months. Last I counted, there are 2 queens, around 110 major workers and around 500 minor workers. The queens are laying eggs every day. The colony is very active, foraging all the time, moving brood here and there...

Sorry if you wanted a photo or two, but I don't have any for now. I'll get some photos from my journal in another forum. I'll post them tonight, if I could.

[fleck]

Post dedicated to pictures, again. Pictures 1-4 are not from the colony, but it's still the same species. It belongs to a previous queen, which died... Also, these are all older photos, even the newest one in already 1 month old. I'll be taking more now that the nearly 2 month holidays are here.

[fleck]

Update. ( 11/11/2012 )

Bad news first, I've lost sight of one queen since a few weeks ago. Probably dead now... Don't know why they would kill her when they got along well for 11 months...

On the bright side, a one-and-a-half month long holiday has started! I decided to make a new formicarium for my Pheidole sp. colony, as their current one is starting to turn black at the top and some parts of the surface have been chewed out by the ants to make their entrances smaller.

I started work 2 days ago and finished everything this morning. I'm slowly moving the ants myself, since I can't connect them with tubing. I just put a test tube set up covered with tin foil and place it in the foraging area of the old formicarium. I haven't watered the formicarium nor provided them with water for 4 days, so they immediately started moving all the brood into the test tube. After what seemed like an hour, there was still a lot of workers and the one queen in the old formicarium. But I took the test tube out and placed it in their new home.

The workers moved the brood out of the freshly made and watered formicarium, and settled down well. I'm currently repeating the slow process. Most of the brood have been moved into the new home, along with around 300 workers. The queen and around 300 workers are still in the old home. I'll post pictures tomorrow or the next day.

[fleck]

Around 50, probably more, of the workers escaped overnight!

I woke up this morning to find the table they're on crawling with them... Spent well over 15 minutes catching them back. I'm just glad they haven't crawled off the table and around my house!

I'm not sure if the olive oil is too old or they got immune to it. I'll try baby oil, or maybe buy new olive oil tomorrow. Until then, I'm going to make another moat...

[fleck]

Pictures of the whole set up, the whole colony ( minus a few dozen foragers ), close-ups. The close-up came so small, cause I cropped it from a large picture.

[Wood~Ant]

I can see your problem with the air vents on the tank, as even ants larger than Phediole could escape through the slats. Gluing a fine cloth on the inside of the lid to cover the vents will work here, as unlike your Camponotus tiny ants will not chew through cloth if it is strong enough and doesn't get damp or wet.

You will need a metal mesh for your Campos though to prevent escape. Nice pics

[fleck]

I think I found out the problem of the workers escaping. I think it's because the queen wasn't there.

I actually move them slowly, and the queen was moved only yesterday. The workers stopped their escaping after that. I guess they were escaping to find their queen or something. There's only a dozen or so workers remaining in the old nest. They doesn't seem to want to move...

[fleck]

Update. ( 21/11/2012 )

Nothing special to note for this colony. The queen is alive, the brood is still a lot. The worker counts doesn't seem to increase, or maybe it's just because the colony's already so big, I don't notice the increase... But I can certainly see that many workers a re dying already. I see lots of red dots, probably the thorax and head of the dead workers, eaten out by the others, around the entrance.

They've also been very busy digging around the plaster... Nothing major, just a few tunnels around the corners. It seems like they're just digging very small bits of plaster to block and make the entrances smaller. I also fed them pieces of egg and sausage, and while they didn't cover the food with bits of plaster, they did pile up the bits around the food.

Not much pictures for them. They're too tiny to get nicely, and the container they're in are scratched up in many places, so my camera keeps focusing on the scratches instead of the ants behind...



All pictures of them eating food.

by the way, the pieces of egg and sausage is actually smaller than my fingernails, so you should get the idea of how small they are.

[fleck]

Update. ( 26/11/2012 )

Nothing much to note about... I started increasing the humidity because someone advised me to. I haven't noticed anything unusual or different. Yet.

I was bored yesterday night, and found a lone worker ( dunno what species ) on the wall. I picked the worker up and threw her into the formicarium with my Pheidoles. They found her within seconds due to their active foraging, and the information of the enemy spread fast. Within 30 seconds there was a steady stream of workers and majors from the entrance to the enemy. I didn't watch much later, but there was no sign of the worker this morning...

Also, I managed to get some excellent photos of the ants! Videos of this colony will be uploaded tonight or tomorrow.

A bunch of majors on the wall.


Some minor workers helping another to eclose.


Brood pile.


Brood pile, queen in background.


A minor and major worker in a wall.


The whole chamber.


Floor of pupae, and uncountable unseen other broood.


Another chamber, with some brood. The more yellowy thing on the walls are all larvae.