My First Queen

Questions from those who are just starting or considering getting into the ant keeping hobby. If you’re intimidated or confused by the in-depth posts of the other sections of this forum, feel free to post here, and we'll start from square one!

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Sonalan

My First Queen

Post: # 6393Post Sonalan
Sun May 29, 2016 2:23 am

Hey guys. I'm new here. I'll give a bit of a back story and then i'll get to my question.

I'm from Wisconsin. Ants have always fascinated me. I had 2 different ant farms when i was little. A milton bradly and a DIY out of plexiglass and wood filled with dirt. Never had a queen for them though. Recently I found AntsCanada on youtube. I forget how. But i have watched almost all the tutorial videos and some in between. I learned alot more than i previously new about ants and i decided to carry through with ant keeping. I ordered some plastic test tubes and cotton balls. I have an aquarium that i will use as the nest and outworld that i will make with grout. I was waiting for a warm day right after rain. Last wednesday it was the first day in the 80s here in wisconsin. It stormed that morning for maybe two hours and i was going to go for a walk and look for queens. I came out of my room to go for a walk and one of the cats was staring at something on the wall in the living room. I looked closer and i was 90% sure it was a queen. What dumb luck! Scooped her up in a test tube and put her in my closet under some clothes. i went outside and walked for about an hour and found nothing. I did some research to find out what species it was that i found on my wall. I'm pretty sure she's a camponotus pennsylvanicus. She's rather large. I left her alone and did more research. I saw that the majors of the species can be quite large. I started getting paranoid that it was a major instead of a queen. So after 48 hours i pulled her back out to take a look. From what i could see she did lay at least one egg. But she had tore at the cotton at the entrance of the tube and strung it out a bit. It looked like she only got about 1/4 of the way through. So here's my question:

Do i need to be worried about this? Was this just her immediate response to being bottled up? Was she just trying to make the tube a little more worthy of a founding chamber? Do you think she'll keep ripping away at it? Is this a sign of stress or anything else?

Thanks in advance!

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larynx
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Re: My First Queen

Post: # 6394Post larynx
Sun May 29, 2016 2:43 am

to answer your questions in one answer the best i know:
pulling at the cotton is perfectly normal for newly caught queens. sometimes its because they just got "caught" and they may be stressed at first. some times they pull at it to change the humidity and stuff in the tube. ive also had queens pull at it when they get bothered too much down the road. i wouldn't worry about it unless it gets to the point where she is getting tangled and stuff. then you may have to carefully pull a rescue mission. one thing ive found to help is to use more cotton and make the cotton plug too tight for them to pull it very much at all. :mrgreen:
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Sonalan

Re: My First Queen

Post: # 6525Post Sonalan
Tue May 31, 2016 1:51 am

Thanks for the quick response!

I haven't checked her since last friday morning. I'll probably check on her wednesday morning since that'll be the 1 week caught period. I ordered a $20 phone macro lens off amazon so hopefully i can get a 100% positive ID on her later this week.

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Re: My First Queen

Post: # 6555Post AntsRule
Tue May 31, 2016 1:16 pm

Sonalan wrote:Thanks for the quick response!

I haven't checked her since last friday morning. I'll probably check on her wednesday morning since that'll be the 1 week caught period. I ordered a $20 phone macro lens off amazon so hopefully i can get a 100% positive ID on her later this week.
Just do not look to much :D I hate it when people get to exited and look at the queens to much and then the queen ends up eating her eggs or stops laying eggs :( I would say only look every three to four weeks. Although you do want to make sure you can monitor the water portion so she does not run out. Just wrap a piece of paper around her end of the test tube leaving the water portion open. Would not want her to dry up! :D Good luck!
With all the things ants can do, you wonder, who rules the planet :?

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Varanid
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Re: My First Queen

Post: # 6559Post Varanid
Tue May 31, 2016 1:52 pm

That is the hardest part, I have problems keeping myself from looking at them. Longest I have been able to go without checking is 3 days. Hopefully it gets easier.

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Re: My First Queen

Post: # 6566Post AntsRule
Tue May 31, 2016 2:49 pm

Varanid wrote:That is the hardest part, I have problems keeping myself from looking at them. Longest I have been able to go without checking is 3 days. Hopefully it gets easier.
That is very very risky :shock: Please do not peek that much. I would hate for them to eat there eggs. Please please please wait longer because they WILL eat there eggs or not lay. :D
With all the things ants can do, you wonder, who rules the planet :?

Keeper of:
Camponotus Pennsylvanicus
Pheidole sp.

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larynx
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Re: My First Queen

Post: # 6577Post larynx
Tue May 31, 2016 3:56 pm

Varanid wrote:That is the hardest part, I have problems keeping myself from looking at them. Longest I have been able to go without checking is 3 days. Hopefully it gets easier.
lol. i feel ya. i have mine set up to where i can check on them every day or so. :D
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Varanid
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Re: My First Queen

Post: # 6584Post Varanid
Tue May 31, 2016 4:20 pm

I need 100 queens, so I can check on 2 or 3 a day without disturbing the rest :)

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MadVampy
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Re: My First Queen

Post: # 6597Post MadVampy
Tue May 31, 2016 7:53 pm

Sonalan Welcome to the AntsCanada Ants Forums (ACAF) and welcome to the awesome world of ant keeping (I think they keep us more so than us keeping them)!

Two things I'll point out.

#1 when you buy cotton balls buy the large ones, the reason I say this is because when you start pushing in a large one it compacts better providing a much denser and larger plug for the tube and I have found that they tend to stop tearing at it sooner. The smaller cotton balls don't plug the tube as well and are loose so the queen can tear at it easier causing the stringing out effect. This goes with the water block cotton also, the larger balls are again more dense which intern helps prevent leakage which as any here who have had it happen can drown a queen, her eggs, and any new nantics (new baby ants) right away beings they have nowhere to run to.

#2 One of the hardest things is not peeking in on the queen! Everyone wants to peek and see what she's doing, it's human nature to be curious! But like others have said, if you disturb the queen too much she will become stressed and panic and in turn could eat her eggs she has laid or refuse to lay any at all. In nature she digs a hole, buries herself in a room she has hollowed out and stays there until she has some young to aid her. This doesn't happen with all species, some have to have others there to feed her during the brooding process and also take care of the eggs, larva, and pupa. Either way she is never disturbed and just does what she does best.... Lay eggs.

With that said I like to see what's going on and being a tech geek/nerd I went a little further and set up a antcam so I could see my queens without ever disturbing them. It has IR LED's on it so it can see in the dark and the IR light doesn't bother the ants whatsoever. My way of peeking in on them without messing with them at all.

Below is two of the videos I made of them.

Just after I put them in their tubes.



This is I think a week or two after I put them in the tubes.

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