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Post by deansyme on Jun 17, 2016 18:39:26 GMT
![:(](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/sad.png) I hope the rest arent like that! I am really surprised that if she is infertile she has laid so many eggs? I wonder if they would mate with her? Dean
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Post by Wood~Ant on Jun 17, 2016 21:31:22 GMT
![:(](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/sad.png) I hope the rest arent like that! I am really surprised that if she is infertile she has laid so many eggs? I wonder if they would mate with her? Dean I think some of the smaller cocoons could hold more males, but the larger ones may contain workers? There are also quite a few larvae and several more eggs, so I'm living in hope that the males were from eggs laid in spring and will be a minority.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2016 7:24:41 GMT
Sorry to hear this, hopefully there will be more workers. the cocoons are not as big as the workers from what I can see. The male workers do look quite furry looking at them closely.
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Post by Wood~Ant on Jun 18, 2016 10:50:34 GMT
Sorry to hear this, hopefully there will be more workers. the cocoons are not as big as the workers from what I can see. The male workers do look quite furry looking at them closely. Another male is being born, making 3 so far. Vastly smaller than the workers or queen, I do hope that not all the pupae are males? It makes you wonder if the Chinese are just out to sell ants for profit and don't care how they get them, or bother if a queen is mated or not. I hear so many tales of people getting perfectly good colonies, but also of getting ripped off by the Asian ant sellers. I place no blame on Dean if this is the case as he got them in good faith, so if this queen does prove to be not mated by only producing males, it is the Chinese seller who is at fault and entirely to blame.
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Post by deansyme on Jun 18, 2016 11:31:31 GMT
I hope there is some workers there. To be fair I bought lots of colonies from that particular seller, some I still have which are fine. If she is infertile I wonder of the males would mate with her?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2016 12:28:13 GMT
If there are lots of males, I would say the queen was brood boosted and that the pupae which do turn into workers are in fact eggs that were given to the queen and not her own. No, the males will not mate with the queen. If they do the chances of the sperm working is very unlikely as she will be inbred.
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Post by Jenny on Jun 18, 2016 12:37:46 GMT
She was not brood boosted, she came with no brood and all the brood was laid by herself.
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Post by Wood~Ant on Jun 18, 2016 14:40:54 GMT
The 3rd one which eclosed last has been eaten by a worker, and as Jenny said all the eggs were laid this year by the queen as the colony didn't have any brood when we got it.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 21, 2016 8:06:01 GMT
Pretty awful service there from British Ants with the nicoborencis queen, did you get a refund?
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Post by Wood~Ant on Jul 21, 2016 8:15:07 GMT
Pretty awful service there from British Ants with the nicoborencis queen, did you get a refund? I didn't ask for a refund or replacement, as they were sold out. I would do if this queen died.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 23, 2016 6:13:37 GMT
Really beautiful colony Wood. The haberi keep going from strength to strength.
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Post by jeoff82 on Aug 3, 2016 21:07:49 GMT
Wood I keep my Ligniperdus in the same way you do and they are doing really well. The queen has stayed in the same test tube I got her in and it's gone bone dry. I placed it in a outworld with another test tube of water, they only use it for drinking. I got the colony with 3 workers last September, I now have 8 workers and lots of brood. I keep them in the loft which is warm but cold in the winter. They hibernated up there last winter no problems. It's dark and they have very little disturbances, they have dry/moist areas, food on tap, seems to suit them.
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Post by Wood~Ant on Aug 4, 2016 7:09:29 GMT
jeoff82 Thanks for the comment, as I think if this C. ligniperda colony is going to do better in this sort of set up then they can stay in it. I hope the eggs will produce workers over the next couple of months, as being laid now in late summer may slow their development down a bit, but at the moment the room temperature is staying at 23 Celsius.
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Post by Zarbi on Aug 9, 2016 10:32:00 GMT
Having watched a few videos of C. substitutus a colony can get really huge, at least around 3,000. I think the premature deaths of those 2 workers may be due to them being first workers and not a later generation?
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Post by Black Ant on Aug 27, 2016 9:57:21 GMT
Nice to see your Asian species are all coming along fine Wood. I hope the substitutus start growing into a big colony too.
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