Pachycondyla + Camponotus journal

[JPSMedeiros]

Hello guys, to start this journal, suggested by our friend "pedrovicentebp" I would like to tell you guys just a little about me.
I'm from Brazil, I study computer science in a very renowned university here from Brazil. I started loving ants after watching some AC videos on youtube. I live in two places, so my parents will maybe have to help me feed the ants, 4 days with the ants, and 3 days where I study (Niterói - Rio de Janeiro).
I have never had a colony(or at least eggs), my first ants were 2 leaf cutters that I released because they seem to be too difficult to keep.
Now lets talk about the ants that I'll be making the journal about:
Now is summer on Brazil and there's ants(and spiders and all kind of stuff) every where. I found a Pachycondyla on my garden, I was very happy with that luck. Then I saw another one, another one... They are every where now. I found a little ant that still unidentified, but today I released(because I had no more test tubes) her to capture my Camponotus ("rufipes"?), that is a big ant and seems to be cooler I found a lot of these too but couldn't keep more than 1, one of them flew on me while I was taking the pictures

The Pachycondyla's are in test tubes for almost 2 days and the Camponotus I captured today. Yesterday I bought some Tupperware to make the Pachycondyla's outworld(as suggested in the forum, since they are semi-claustral). Today I started to prepare them as I showed on another topic, but as in this one I'll be reporting every thing will post them again.
My journal will be with as many relevant photos as I can take(with my horrible cell phone camera (Galaxy S3) +
Approaching lens). I think that photos are great because they make people that don't like to read a lot(like me) come and check, and maybe get interested and read, also provide good info.
OBS#1: Please help me make my journal by suggesting things, I don't speak english very well, I try to don't use google translate to learn how to write well. So if you see me writing something wrong please tell me. Also if you want to see something special like closer photos, maybe talk more about something... please fell free to ask.
OBS#2:I'm a noob ant keeper, so I would like A LOT suggestions about how to do stuff.

Thanks for reading until here, this is probably the biggest text in english that I ever wrote .

Picked some dirt, rocks and branches:


Organized the stuff:


Inside:


IS THAT TOO MUCH DIRT?(This larva wasn't planned, it's ant food now)


Placed the queens:


One of them is already on the hunt:


The Ant Chest:



THE ANTS:

Ant#1 (Would be good to give them names?)





Ant#2:


Ant#3:
I have no photos of her right know but she is just like Ant#2.

Ant#4:
(OBS: I don't know yet if it's really is Camponotus sp.)

[JPSMedeiros]

I forgot to say that Ant#1 removed her wings inside the test tube, so now I don't know who is who, but I'll place something on their outworlds so I can know.

[pedrovicentebp]

Good luck with your ants
yes you should name them just to know who is who
and i recommend you at least at the beginning to count the eggs and workers and all that so you can "control" more the population
i have gived you a lot of info today thats almost all i know about these ants or my opinions but any new info i will let you know
(this forum should have a extra place to comment the journals just an idea for any admin that sees this )

[JPSMedeiros]

I don't know anymore wich ant is wich(my fault) so I will start the Ant#N thing again, sorry.
Last night I did some search on antwiki and others, I found out that this ant is mostly active in the day, so maybe me keeping them in the dark is not a good thing, I'll leave them in the dark anyways(if you guys don't recommend me to don't).
Antwiki says that "Relatively little is known about its habits" so I guess that I'll help the community with that.
Other thing that I discovered is that the workers lay eggs( ) "Wheeler (1900b) reported on egg production by workers of P. harpax, which he interpreted as being ergatoid queens but which are more likely just normal workers laying haploid eggs, as is common in Ponerinae". I don't thing that my Pachycondyla is harpax since antwiki says that they don't live where I live... But this workers laying eggs is very crazy .
Also found out that this ant stings, thank God I found out through a video of Pachycondylas killing an cockroach, I hope that they never sting me.

I placed the nests in a drawer since the chest was giving me too much trouble to take the nests, place food...

Ant#1 - ate the worm(or moved it somewhere else).
Ant#2 - that I placed a dead unidentified dead alate ate it, left the worm intact.(I only placed the alate on this nest, because I just had one.)
Ant#3 - did not eat the worm.

This morning I placed to the 3 ants a piece of banana and parts of a dead scorpion that I killed last night(it's very rare to see scorpions around here). I removed the tail just to be sure. I decided to place the food on the top of some plastic so the dirt don't get dirt( is this right )
This afternoon I checked and Ant#2 ate the scorpion parts, the other 2 didn't.
Also nobody ate the banana( ). I'll try some cotton with sugar and water.
The bad boy:


I was noticing that they didn't stay inside the test tube, so they probably were going to lay eggs in the dirt and I would have no control. With that said I decided to renovate their nest(just a little bit). I placed some dirt on the top of the test tubes, but leaving space behind the wall so I can see inside, don't know if they will move inside, but it is already difficult to see inside (some dirt escaped my protections).

They were like this:(Ant#2)


Now it looks like this:(Ant#1 is under the branch)


Side view(Ant#1):


Ant#2 is exploring)


Side view(Ant#2):


bad photo:(Ant#3 is next to the big rock)


Side view(Ant#3):


I placed the branches and rocks so the dirt don't cover (our) view of the inside of the test tube. Engineering stuff

I found some termites and managed to place a lot of them inside a glass pot, with a little piece of wood, i'll be feeding the ants with them tomorrow. Also found a store that sells alive mealworms but they don't have it now, by the end of the week they will have, so then I'll have a proper food source.

OBS: I don't know if I'm disturbing them too much, but how I'm supposed to feed them if I don't? That's bad.

[pedrovicentebp]

ok they are doing amazing and you should try to dont disturb/stress too much just feed them 2 times in a week
yep it is nice if you give them like a "dish" where you put the food and they dont get dirty
and they dont need to be in the dark i mean you just should left the test tube dark but the rest can remain in light
i recommend you to freeze any wild caught bug so yo kill any parasite/aphid
i think that all the species of ants eat honeywater or sugarwater because already my Odontomachus(carnivore ant)seems to love the sugar water in the foundation station of the colony some times i give them bugs but you are giving them a nice alimentation so you dont need to change anything (i think that pachycondyla dosnt eat fruit)
and an extra recommendation you should raise up those mealworms they are pretty easy to care for they just need some oat i think and veggies and fruits like potatos or apples i dont raise them actually because here in venezuela thera are no good pet shops to buy them but i watched some videos on youtube

Good Luck

[JPSMedeiros]

This day that I haven't posted an update I captured another Camponotus rufipes queen, now I have 2, placed for both some honey in a piece of plastic, I'll leave them there, my next check will be day 27/10(one week from now).
This new queen isn't in a test tube(since I don't have more), I stole from the kitchen a pot, made some holes on the cover, also took a lipstick cover to be used as a water holder(I washed it very well).
There's right now another Camponotus, smaller than the rufipes on my living room but I don't have a container for her
Couldn't contain myself and I peeked my Pachycondyla ants, I placed a tape with the numbers 1, 2 and 3 so I know wich is wich. This time I won't have photos because I didn't want to disturb the ants too much.
Ant#1 and And#2 still outside the covered test tube, they didn't drink the drop of water with sugar that I placed and apparently didn't eat the insects that I placed. I placed some termites for the 3 ants as I read that they are what these ant's eat in the wild.
Now the big news!!!! I THINK that Ant#3 has an egg !!!!!! My first ant with eggs Ant#3 is inside the covered test tube right next to the cotton that holds the water. She is facing a beige small think capsule shaped. I wanted to take a picture but it's very hard even to me to see inside there, and I need to use a flashlight to be able to see inside because it's very dark in there. I hope to see a worker in the next 15 days. My next check on them will also be day 27/10, I hope to have some mealworms ready to go when we get there(maybe i'll place a mealworm for them if I manage to get them until day (23/10).
#AntLove

[LeandroRiva]

Hello! My queens ants are exactly like yours! Pachycondyla! Eggs take more than 15 days to turn into worker. Look at Mikey videos, his Tetramorium take 43 days to the first worker. Our Queen the Pachycondyla may take at least 1,5 ~ 2,5 month at minimum! So we have to be very patient
My Favorite Queen Pachycondyla (#1) has 8-11 eggs and its has been 18 days.
My First Tetramorium (I suppose it is), has 15~25 eggs in 7 days
Cya! Continue to Your journal!