Cale's Camponotus pennsylvanicus colony

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xTNxANTMANx
Posts: 416
Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2016 9:03 am
Location: Western Tennessee

Re: Cale's Camponotus pennsylvanicus colony

Post: # 20819Post xTNxANTMANx
Mon May 08, 2017 8:53 pm

Kool, I'll definately give it a go then. I was planning on experimenting with it anyway as I have 2 Camponotus subbarbatus colonies and try to see if I could tell a difference between them if i feed one with it and the other with something else.
Keeping:
Camponotus subbarbatus
Formica pallidefulva x2
Formica subsericea x4
Lasius sp
Tetramorium immigrans x2
Dorymyrmex bureni

Founding:
Formica pallidefulva
Unknown sp x2

Theantguy13

Re: Cale's Camponotus pennsylvanicus colony

Post: # 21705Post Theantguy13
Thu May 25, 2017 11:45 am

Hey Cale, great journal, I'm so jealous. Just wondering if you had any recommendations for heating cables, lamps,etc. because I live in a region where it can get as hot as 120 F or as low as 23 F (both have happened this year O_O)

Cale3459

Re: Cale's Camponotus pennsylvanicus colony

Post: # 21707Post Cale3459
Thu May 25, 2017 12:04 pm

Well the sad day has come. Despite my attempts to brood boost her this queen has passed. I came back from 6 days in London and she was gone.

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The good news is that the three Camponotus queens my girlfriend caught in her cactus pot are all doing exceptional. The first one had excessive amounts of mold in the tube right before I left. I tried to get her to move out of the tube into another with heat and light and she refused to budge. Managed to get her into a new tube finally and she is doing well with several eggs and one larvae upon my return. The other two have several very large larvae that seem well on their way to to pupae stage soon I'm hoping.

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Theantguy13

Re: Cale's Camponotus pennsylvanicus colony

Post: # 21731Post Theantguy13
Thu May 25, 2017 6:12 pm

RIP

xTNxANTMANx
Posts: 416
Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2016 9:03 am
Location: Western Tennessee

Re: Cale's Camponotus pennsylvanicus colony

Post: # 21733Post xTNxANTMANx
Thu May 25, 2017 6:54 pm

At least you still have the other 3. Last time I checked on my to they were both doing good. One still has eggs, maybe small larvae (didn't look long emough), and the the other already has one pupa I could see maybe 2. It's been almost a week so I'm going to check on them tonight. Can't wait till I have my first worker. I really want a Camponotus castaneus queen so bad lol.
Keeping:
Camponotus subbarbatus
Formica pallidefulva x2
Formica subsericea x4
Lasius sp
Tetramorium immigrans x2
Dorymyrmex bureni

Founding:
Formica pallidefulva
Unknown sp x2

xTNxANTMANx
Posts: 416
Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2016 9:03 am
Location: Western Tennessee

Re: Cale's Camponotus pennsylvanicus colony

Post: # 21736Post xTNxANTMANx
Thu May 25, 2017 7:07 pm

Check out my Camponotus subbarbatus journal. Go to the last two or three posts I made and you will see how good they are doing. The very last post is a video I took last night with a new macro lens I got for my phone. I've got to get better lighting and also get better using it but it's a really cool video I think. The detail is amazing.
Keeping:
Camponotus subbarbatus
Formica pallidefulva x2
Formica subsericea x4
Lasius sp
Tetramorium immigrans x2
Dorymyrmex bureni

Founding:
Formica pallidefulva
Unknown sp x2

Cale3459

Re: Cale's Camponotus pennsylvanicus colony

Post: # 21756Post Cale3459
Thu May 25, 2017 10:35 pm

Theantguy13 wrote:
Thu May 25, 2017 11:45 am
Hey Cale, great journal, I'm so jealous. Just wondering if you had any recommendations for heating cables, lamps,etc. because I live in a region where it can get as hot as 120 F or as low as 23 F (both have happened this year O_O)
Sorry, I meant to respond to this earlier but forgot after I made my post. I use a small reptile lamp above the area where I keep my nests. I have a small reptile thermometer and humidity gauge next to the nests and I keep it right around 80 degrees. I have a ZooMed reptile heating cable. It's the smallest one they make. It doesn't create a lot of heat but enough for them to get closer or farther away depending on what they choose.

Theantguy13

Re: Cale's Camponotus pennsylvanicus colony

Post: # 21760Post Theantguy13
Thu May 25, 2017 10:55 pm

dude thanks so much, I actually was looking at zoomed products today XD
Anyway that helps a lot so thanks man.

xTNxANTMANx
Posts: 416
Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2016 9:03 am
Location: Western Tennessee

Re: Cale's Camponotus pennsylvanicus colony

Post: # 21765Post xTNxANTMANx
Thu May 25, 2017 11:29 pm

I use the exact same products myself. I've got the smallest heat cable you can get (i have 3 actually) and they do a perfect job with heating the nests. I also have a heat mat, which is the mini, that I use to keep my feeder insects at a good temperature as well. I've got a digital thermometer that I keep right around the center of where all my aunts are and I tried to keep it between 75ºF and 80ºF. If it gets colder than like 70ºF that's when I turn my heat cable on. Dubia roaches are a tropical species so I try to keep them around the same temperature all the time, roughly 80ºF. Zoomed products are affordable and are good to have.
Keeping:
Camponotus subbarbatus
Formica pallidefulva x2
Formica subsericea x4
Lasius sp
Tetramorium immigrans x2
Dorymyrmex bureni

Founding:
Formica pallidefulva
Unknown sp x2

jsantswag

Re: Cale's Camponotus pennsylvanicus colony

Post: # 22346Post jsantswag
Sun Jun 04, 2017 10:16 pm

Cale3459 wrote:
Tue Feb 14, 2017 11:10 pm
I rescued this colony as we were moving some stuff and redoing my driveway. The colony was displaced by the digging and resurfacing and I was able to capture the queen and around 20 workers. Unfortunately, due to stress or just the fact that it was time for those particular ants, my numbers dropped to 15 just before hibernation. She laid a few eggs right before winter, and due to high temperatures locally I brought them out of hibernation about 2 weeks ago. I've been feeding a steady diet of crickets, apples, honey, sugar water, and regular water and I noticed that some of my eggs have hatched and moved on to the larval stage including one particularly fat one. I'm down to 13 workers now and hoping she is able to produce enough eggs to counter the drop off in workers and begin growing the numbers in the colony again.

(Also incredibly impressed with my iPhone camera :lol: )

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cool! i just got my third ant queen of the season, and is exactly that carpenter ant. ( its my first year of taking on ant keeping :mrgreen: :) :D )

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