The AntsCanada Ant Forum's

Do you think a Camponotus species could survive in a Pogonomyrmex Hybrid Nest?

Yes I'm sure they could survive. The nest designs are meant to mimic their natural nest design, but the ants will adapt to the nest they are provided. For example, the Omni nest series has successfully housed many different species of ant.

Interesting. Though I hope to get a Pogonomyrmex colony started, I may have to switch to Camponotus due to my failure at finding any queens.

October 21, 2015
The small colony moved into the Hybrid nest a couple of weeks ago. I believe the test tube finally ran out of water. I had been feeding them cracker crumbs and an occasional insect, but nothing really seemed to change for them. Then I fed them some honey on a piece of foil and within a day or two, the queen fattened up and produced a clutch of 8-10 eggs. I guess she just needed something sweet to get her going again. You can see the eggs in the two pictures here, but they are hard to make out. The queen is next to them in both pictures.

March 23, 2016
To my dismay, I found the queen had died in this small colony. Yesterday morning I noticed that the workers had transported her dead body out of the Hybrid nest and into a connected test tube. One was watching over her and would not leave, even when I disturbed the test tube. The colony was just starting to grow again. There are 6 workers now and a small brood, perhaps 3 larvae and 4 to 5 eggs.

Since this colony is "dead", I followed the advice of WillWithAnts and transferred the remaining brood into a test tube with a Camponotus modoc queen, still without workers. She readily accepted the brood. I hope she raises them to maturity and that it gives her a little kick start of her own.

Here is the thread regarding the "brood boosting" suggestion:
http://forum.AntsCanada.com/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=874

ooper01 wrote:March 23, 2016
To my dismay, I found the queen had died in this small colony. Yesterday morning I noticed that the workers had transported her dead body out of the Hybrid nest and into a connected test tube. One was watching over her and would not leave, even when I disturbed the test tube. The colony was just starting to grow again. There are 6 workers now and a small brood, perhaps 3 larvae and 4 to 5 eggs.

Since this colony is "dead", I followed the advice of WillWithAnts and transferred the remaining brood into a test tube with a Camponotus modoc queen, still without workers. She readily accepted the brood. I hope she raises them to maturity and that it gives her a little kick start of her own.

Here is the thread regarding the "brood boosting" suggestion:
http://forum.AntsCanada.com/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=874

Good luck !

I gave her a big drop of honey. Hopefully she can use that to keep the new brood fed.

Two of the adopted larvae pupated and eclosed recently. I will leave this colony in the test tube setup until they reach 20+ workers. I have them connected to a test tube portal and just added a second, clean test tube setup for them as the current test tube is nearly dry. Keeping my fingers crossed that this queen will start laying eggs again and that the new workers can help her tend to the growth of the colony.

SOOO cool... great pictures.

How are they doing, Ooper?