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Post by bobdol on Mar 25, 2012 9:37:18 GMT
Last year I received a nice sized Pheidole pallidula colony. There is around 150 workers in the colony and since coming out of hibernation the Queen has been laying eggs like crazy with the workers dragging as much insect food to growing larvae as possible.
This colony is housed in a small glass basin with a new nest design I was trying out. Of course the ants identified some key faults by managing to tunnel into the water chamber which meant I had to place a test tube into the set up which they have now taken up residence in.
The colony is mostly a dark orange/brown color although certain workers are almost yellow - especially the soldiers, whilst the queen is a light orange shade.
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Post by bobdol on Apr 5, 2012 17:29:17 GMT
These guys have been feeding on almost anything I put in their tank with constant foraging activity. They are still adding to a huge mound of sand they have been building in front of the test tube. Some of the eggs have developed into larvae as well which is nice too see.
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Post by bobdol on Apr 21, 2012 8:28:54 GMT
There is a huge batch of brood in this colony now after the queen laid so many eggs. I just hope these guys will take enough food back to the feed the huge mass of tiny larvae.
This morning I was expecting to see a spider carcass somewhere as I fed them a freshly killed one last night. But, I cannot see anything at all so they must of truly devoured it as the last I saw in the evening was it covered in workers being dragged to the queen and brood.
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Post by bobdol on May 4, 2012 21:18:22 GMT
I'm so glad too see tons of brood in this colony as I was begining to fear the eggs were not developing properly. I always find it hard to estimate but there looks to be about 50+ eggs, 50+ larvae and about 30 pupae. There is about 100 workers with 5-6 soldiers. I still cannot catch this colonys intrest with anything sugary but they will take any insect as long as its frehsly dead. They have also been eating egg, chicken and anything else which is high in protien.
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Post by bobdol on May 16, 2012 17:12:07 GMT
These ants have been moving around like crazy after completley evacuating their test tube (for no ovbious reason) they have been carrying their brood to a different part of tank everday although the queen and most of the workers have settled down in their own nest. This was one of my older gypsum nests and the Pheidole workers managed to break the humidification system by tunneling into some pipes that were covered in weak plaster. So although its as dry as a bone in there they do not seem to mind eventhough they moved straight into the humid test tube when I placed it in the tank. There is a lot of pupae now so due for an explosion of workers soon. The queen has also laid fresh eggs, hopefully she has another batch on the way soon!
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Post by bobdol on Jun 23, 2012 15:54:16 GMT
These ants are still doing really well - there is a lot of brood of all stages meaning the worker population is in a nice steady rise right now. They have been eating some cashew nut today which the major workers grind up with their powerful jaws.
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Post by Wood~Ant on Jun 23, 2012 16:06:00 GMT
I have never tried any of my ants on nuts, but it makes sense that wild ants must nibble on fallen nuts and berries from trees and bushes. Next time I have some cashew nuts I will try them out. ;D
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Post by bobdol on Jun 23, 2012 17:03:39 GMT
Surprisingly I find my Pheidole colony the most fussy out of all my ants. They will not touch anything sugary like honey, cake etc. All they ever want to eat is insects and I do not have a big supply of those . I do not think nuts are popular with all ant species but this colony seemed to love them. I heard that for wild Pheidologeton colonies 50% of their diet is actually fruit and nuts from the forest floor.
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