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ooper's Camponotus modoc colony (#2)

Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2015 1:11 am
by ooper01
June 22, 2015
My daughter and her friend found this queen at work. They sent me a picture of it and asked if it was a queen. I told them it was and I drove over with a test tube setup. Luckily she had a test tube in her car that I had given her husband the night before :) I was really just kidding around when I offered them a test tube but he said he'd take it. She captured it and put it in the test tube until I could get there.
image.jpg
Identified it as Camponotus modoc.

Re: ooper's Camponotus modoc colony

Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2015 1:18 am
by ooper01
August 3, 2015
Expecting nanitics very soon. This queen is about 15mm.
campo2.gif
campo1.gif

Re: ooper's Camponotus modoc colony

Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2015 7:54 pm
by ooper01
NikolaMladenovic wrote:Cool bro!! I really wanna keep camponotus but i don't know if they are native here in Sweden :cry:
Looks like you have a few Camponotus species to choose from in Sweden.

Scroll down to the species section of this page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ants_of_Sweden

First nanitic arrives 10aug15

Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2015 8:40 pm
by ooper01
The first nanitic arrived today! Very exciting :) Two more should arrive any day now.
campo-first-nanitics1.gif
campo-first-nanitics2.gif
I also fed the queen her first bit of food today, a droplet of honey. She looked a little weak, stumbling a bit, so I thought it was time to feed her. She ate the honey droplet I gave her immediately.

Re: ooper's Camponotus modoc colony

Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2015 11:15 pm
by WiseHollow
She's looking good! Great pictures.

Re: ooper's Camponotus modoc colony

Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2015 1:08 pm
by Mauritaniants
Very nice!
I notice larger species tend to produce less eggs on their founding stage.
My camponotus sericeus had a total of about 6 eggs right now in her test tube while my solenopsis molesta had about 10 nanitic plus a few more.

Re: ooper's Camponotus modoc colony

Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2015 2:00 pm
by ooper01
Mauritaniants wrote:Very nice!
I notice larger species tend to produce less eggs on their founding stage.
My camponotus sericeus had a total of about 6 eggs right now in her test tube while my solenopsis molesta had about 10 nanitic plus a few more.
Yes I have noticed the same thing. My Monomorium minimum queens all have 10-12 nanitics from their initial egg production, while my two Camponotus modoc queens have 3.

Re: ooper's Camponotus modoc colony (#2)

Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2015 12:48 pm
by ooper01
I have been doing a quick check every day for the past week. Probably not the best practice, but too curious not to. I checked yesterday but still only one nanitic. I checked just now and see that a second one has eclosed, yay! I'll post more pix when all three have eclosed.

Re: ooper's Camponotus modoc colony (#2)

Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2015 12:56 pm
by ooper01
Jonathan21700 wrote:Check them once a week and they should get around 10 workers.
That's why she only has 3 pupae.
I will leave her alone for awhile here. Thanks for the advice!

Re: ooper's Camponotus modoc colony (#2)

Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2015 4:02 pm
by ooper01
September 2, 2015
Queen and workers all healthy. The three pupae all emerged and the queen has laid 4 or 5 more eggs. I have the test tube connected to a small outworld and a Hybrid nest. It has been like this for 2 or 3 weeks now, but they have preferred the comfort of the test tube. The workers have explored the newly added areas, but decided to stay put. I'll just leave them alone. I'm not in a big hurry to have them move. The Hybrid nest has some sand and small wood chips/bark mixed in as a substrate.

I have been feeding them flies, potato bugs and honey. They have eaten all three things.