Ants in Peterborough

[Saeyoung]

Rain and thunderstorms have been going on and off for the last week straight. Hoping when this clears out it'll be good for Queen Hunting finally. So excited.

[AntsDaSilva]

its too cold now to find queens buddy. but last month I found a lot prenolepis impairs queens.
if I see more i let you know.

[Saeyoung]

Dunno, it's been like 19-21 here in Peterborough for the last week and if I've learned one thing it's that the 7 day forecast is usually wrong. It's supposed to be rainy for the next few days but if it warms up after that it could be warn enough to go looking for Prenolepis Imparis again. From what I've read you can sometimes find them in May, rare but it has happened.

Unless what I've read is completely wrong, which I mean, it could be.

[AntsDaSilva]

yep buddy kkkkkkkkkk

[Saeyoung]

I'm guessing that's a 'no'?

[Saeyoung]

Found a nest of odorous ants again today by accident.
It's May but I haven't seen hide nor hair of camponotus ants yet. Really hoping to come accross a Camp. Queen of my own. Been looking after rainfalls in wooded areas under rocks, under tree bark, under big sticks ect. I'm either doing something wrong or its not warm enough yet(likely) but I don't want to miss my chance. It is frustrating.

[Saeyoung]

Supposed to go up to 27-28 tomorrow and it's been misting on and off outside. Tomorrow seems like it might be a lucky day!

[Saeyoung]

While I was splitting fire wood today I found an ant that was much larger than the others in the area, so I captured her and I'm asking for help with her ID here:

http://forum.AntsCanada.com/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=3268&p=21259#p21259

[Saeyoung]

Thanks to Martialis and Batspiderfish I now know that on May 16th (The day after a rainstorm out in the bush) near Kawartha Lakes I found a Lasius umbratus social parasite Queen while splitting old logs for kindling. Now I'm doing a survey/sample of the ant nests in the area looking for L. alienus, L. neoniger, or L. pallitarsis brood and young workers to try to give her a host colony to start with.

Fun, fun, fun! I'm always learning with ants!

On another note while I was out today looking for any lasuis host colonies I put my foot down on an old rotten log to kick away the bark and the whole log collapsed inwards and I saw a lot of major camponotus workers and five alate Queens (Unmated of course). I accidentally disturbed their colony but I temporarily captured an alate queen just to examine and get a good look at her. She was almost 2 cm long and was just lovely to look at.

Her head and abdomen were black but her mesosoma/thorax was red. She was fairly calm for being in a pill bottle as well. I'm hoping that the presence of big female alates like that means a flight is coming soon! They are one of the three types of ants I'm 'very' interested in keeping; Camponotus! The Major workers looked almost exactly like this:

[Martialis]

Nice! Just remember to leave mature colonies alone to the best of your ability.