Camponotus Larva Not Growing

[cmreese228]

Hello,

I have had a Camponotus americanus colony for a few months and the queen laid a fair amount of eggs a couple of months ago and the larva are growing very slowly. I understand that the growing rate of Camponotus is slower than most, around 2 months for egg to worker, but it has been over two months and the larva are still very small. I feed them crickets and honey and provide adequate water in multiple test tubes for them. Am I missing something in their diet to help the larva grow?

Thank you for any help

[JoeHostile1]

You took them out of hibernation in February which is still winter. They laid eggs which is nice but sounds like they were still in a state of dormancy. Egg to worker takes 2 months at ideal temperature and during their growing season. Are you still heating your house? If so then your house is not at summer temperatures. Once your house heats up and the ants enter their proper growing season the workers will take about 2 months instead of the about 3 months they are probably taking now.

Camponotus also hibernate with larvae and I hibernate my ants for 5 months. So a larvae may have been growing for a month then goes into 5 months hibernation then takes 1 month after hibernation. That’s a total of 7 months for that egg to turn into an ant. So the two months from egg to larva is not an absolute rule.

[cmreese228]

Around what month is proper growing season?

[JoeHostile1]

Just depends where you live. Camponotus like it hot. And by proper growing season I just mean basically when the night time temperature stays at around 20C or so instead of dropping down to like 10-15C which will slow down the larvae growth rate.

If you want to speed up larvae development in your house you could always add an undercut heat source. Just be careful you don’t cook your ants. Especially if they are in a test tube.