Neerants 1st year of ants.

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NeerAnt

Re: Neerants 1st year of ants.

Post: # 19494Post NeerAnt
Sat Apr 15, 2017 4:48 pm

My last trip to the park was not long ago. There are many many trees at the park and they fall over. So the park has to cut some dangerous ones for child safety. They had a bunch going to the chipper that they let me examine before hand. I found one queen with about 3 workers and a handful of brood. I collected the queen ant and one worker with a bunch of eggs in its mouth. Unfortunately the other workers leaped off the log and vanished.
Pulling the bark off other logs i came into contact with a small colony i THOUGHT to be tetramorium. Luckily i had a Tupperware with me and took a chuck of the log and sealed it. I was excited some because it would of been the species i was looking for already semi started.
On the same log i also found a HUGE Camponotus colony as well with majors . I was running low on containers,Only having snap caps, but i got the queen and a handful of workers with a lot of brood. Filling every vial i had left, Saving who and what i could from the chipper. Unfortunately i did not have time to dig into the wood with my claw hammer for the ones that went into the deep holes :cry:
I had to go to the store and make makeshift formicariums for these decent sized colonies until i can get a few hybrid nests in for them each. I now have a total of 4 Camponotus queens all with eggs at this point and one Aphaenogaster colony which we determined today after i couldn't tell if they where Tetramorium or Solenopsis. All thanks to you forum guys with friendly and quick information I have learned so much in a short time.
My plan is to get the aphaenogaster, and 2 Camponotus that i have in hybrid nests at some point if not asap. The other two camponotus with just eggs i believe will be hibernated before they gain enough momentum and i can worry about that next year (might order the nests before hand just because of the time it seems to get them). I was looking at the aphaenogaster preference. Is there a recommendation on a good nest for them? My crafting ability of nests inst so good yet with hydration.

On the other hand. The Camponotus nest i saved seems to be doing OK in the temp setup. And i got a better camera lens to document.
Also trying out new lens at night, so lighting was not best.

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Jadeninja9
Posts: 732
Joined: Tue Feb 14, 2017 9:00 pm
Location: SF Bay Area, California

Re: Neerants 1st year of ants.

Post: # 19501Post Jadeninja9
Sat Apr 15, 2017 10:40 pm

You're like Ash Ketchum for ants lol
Keeper of:
1x Camponotus Hyatti
1x Lasius alienus colonies
1x Tetramorium immigrans

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