Welcome to the Camponotus Crew!

Discussions about the care and keeping of ants

Moderator: ooper01

SYUTEO
Posts: 1395
Joined: Thu Aug 29, 2019 8:58 am
Location: Malaysia

Re: Welcome to the Camponotus Crew!

Post: # 80662Post SYUTEO
Tue Aug 03, 2021 9:34 pm

Sheljay888 wrote:
Tue Aug 03, 2021 3:00 pm
So 4 nights ago I had a ton of camponatus pennsylvanicus super majors all around the front of my house (got some really good pics of thief ant workers tryn to flex, mandibles open, to a super major while they were drinking honey). Lay down about an hour later and found a lone queen (pretty sure pennsylvanicus) walking across my bed! It scared the crap outta me.I never realized they were so big. Thought my friend threw one of those plastic ones on my bed to screw with me. This is her next to my immagrins queens https://photos.app.goo.gl/y8d1xixiU5ubNfRS6 the issue is she is huge and she can, but barely, turn around in the test tube. She hasn't layed any eggs yet and I'm worried that when she does she's not gonna be able to take care of them or get stressed and eat em. Is she fine since she is able to turn or do I need to move her to something bigger?
That test tube seems fine, but her gaster seems small, feed her a tiny drop of honey or sugar water. I feed my queens when they haven't laid eggs for 3 days or more.

Shinde
Posts: 18
Joined: Wed Jul 17, 2019 4:03 am
Location: Michigan

Re: Welcome to the Camponotus Crew!

Post: # 80763Post Shinde
Fri Aug 06, 2021 11:12 pm

I wrote a novel of an update, and it got deleted because this forum automatically logs me out every 3-5 minutes and it got deleted, kinda miffed I gotta rewrite it now :<

Shinde
Posts: 18
Joined: Wed Jul 17, 2019 4:03 am
Location: Michigan

Re: Welcome to the Camponotus Crew!

Post: # 80764Post Shinde
Fri Aug 06, 2021 11:18 pm

LONG STORY SHORT
I had caught 5 queens about 3 years ago, and still have 2. One is doing fairly well, got a decent brood pile, the other is not. Something (bad water? bad honey? bad luck?) killed a couple whole colonies and all but the queen of another. This queen has been laying eggs, but they either get eaten, or they go bad and get eaten. Finally, a couple days ago, she got company!
First new worker in literally years!
The poor little worker can't walk. Her back four legs are stuck against her gaster, which looks tilted a little oddly. If the queen nudges her just right she can drag herself around with her front two legs, but the angle of her back half usually knocks her back over pretty quickly. Hopefully her legs unstick, but it's already been a few days with no improvements. We'll see though, the queen has been sticking by her side and watching over her, so hopefully!!!

I'll try to give updates a little more frequently than every couple years haha!

SYUTEO
Posts: 1395
Joined: Thu Aug 29, 2019 8:58 am
Location: Malaysia

Re: Welcome to the Camponotus Crew!

Post: # 80769Post SYUTEO
Sat Aug 07, 2021 3:28 am

Shinde wrote:
Fri Aug 06, 2021 11:12 pm
I wrote a novel of an update, and it got deleted because this forum automatically logs me out every 3-5 minutes and it got deleted, kinda miffed I gotta rewrite it now :<
Next time you sign in, tick the 'remember me' box.

SYUTEO
Posts: 1395
Joined: Thu Aug 29, 2019 8:58 am
Location: Malaysia

Re: Welcome to the Camponotus Crew!

Post: # 80770Post SYUTEO
Sat Aug 07, 2021 3:34 am

Shinde wrote:
Fri Aug 06, 2021 11:18 pm
LONG STORY SHORT
I had caught 5 queens about 3 years ago, and still have 2. One is doing fairly well, got a decent brood pile, the other is not. Something (bad water? bad honey? bad luck?) killed a couple whole colonies and all but the queen of another. This queen has been laying eggs, but they either get eaten, or they go bad and get eaten. Finally, a couple days ago, she got company!
First new worker in literally years!
The poor little worker can't walk. Her back four legs are stuck against her gaster, which looks tilted a little oddly. If the queen nudges her just right she can drag herself around with her front two legs, but the angle of her back half usually knocks her back over pretty quickly. Hopefully her legs unstick, but it's already been a few days with no improvements. We'll see though, the queen has been sticking by her side and watching over her, so hopefully!!!

I'll try to give updates a little more frequently than every couple years haha!
The cause of your colony's deaths may be caused by malnutrition, temperature, water and food quality, mites and other parasites, disease, dehydration, mold and maybe even air quality. Do check your colonies and queens for all these factors or they will die.

Gardener
Posts: 42
Joined: Wed Jul 07, 2021 2:47 pm
Location: Rhode Island, USA

Re: Welcome to the Camponotus Crew!

Post: # 80777Post Gardener
Sat Aug 07, 2021 4:24 pm

Greetings,

I'm new here and I need some help.

I checked my Camponotus pennsylvanicus queen today and finally she's no longer alone. At last, she's got a helper.

So, I don't know what to do next. I searched the internet for a guide, but it led me here... And I've been buzzing around in the ant ID forum area this last few weeks.

I caught her about a month or two ago, and put her in a large glass tube. The tube has remained remarkably clean (no mold, trash, etc).. so far.

I guess my question right now is .. when is the time window where I should start feeding? I'm a minimalist and I am not in a rush.

Couple of pics. The first one is from last week, and secondly a shot from today with the little helper.

Image

Image

Shinde
Posts: 18
Joined: Wed Jul 17, 2019 4:03 am
Location: Michigan

Re: Welcome to the Camponotus Crew!

Post: # 80781Post Shinde
Sat Aug 07, 2021 8:06 pm

Syuteo, it was nearly two years ago when the mass death happened, and honestly it might've been a combination plus some stress, because now that I'm thinking about it again it was maybe a month after I'd moved. Since they'd seemed fine for the first week I thought they'd be fine, but I'm sure it didn't help if there were other issues too. They're at least stable for now, though!


Welcome Gardener! Congratulations on your queen and first nanitic! Looks like you're about to have several more! If you can squeeze in a droplet of honey or sugar water or something similar, I'm sure they'd appreciate it. You don't want to put too much at a time though, don't want it to mold or anything, but long term they're going to need a steady supply.
They're approaching the stage where the queen's reserves will be running low, and soon she won't be able to support the colony alone. They're going to be wanting protein soon too. If you feed anything wild caught, I HIGHLY recommend freezing it first to kill any parasites. Crickets are pretty cheap from pet stores, same with mealworms. I freeze them until dead, bring them back to room temperature, then cut them open to make it easier for my ants to get to the juicy goodness.
Hopefully they will eat their fill and leave the body where you put it so you can remove it, but it's not the end of the world if they move it out of reach.

PublicInjury
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue May 25, 2021 8:02 pm
Location: US-Northern Midwest

Re: Welcome to the Camponotus Crew!

Post: # 80799Post PublicInjury
Sun Aug 08, 2021 1:02 pm

Hello I'm back, now with 7 queens in tubes (all C. Pennsylvanicus I believe)! All with brood and 6 of them with nanitics. My over all plan is to keep at least 2 nests, so far most of them appear to be thriving with a couple queens with around 10 ants already (caught most in late may).
I'm kind of wondering how many I should plan to keep, considering this is my first time keeping ants I understand I should expect some loss with the colonies. I also caught as many as I did as I had a family member who was also interested in keeping a couple of them but he has sense changed his mind. So now with these colonies growing pretty fast I'm wondering if it would be best to look into selling them? And if so what I should expect from GAN and what the going price tends to be. If there even is a demand for C. Pennsylvanicus...

Shinde
Posts: 18
Joined: Wed Jul 17, 2019 4:03 am
Location: Michigan

Re: Welcome to the Camponotus Crew!

Post: # 80804Post Shinde
Sun Aug 08, 2021 5:11 pm

Welcome back!

I have no experience with the GAN project, so I can't help you there, but I was in a similar boat when I caught my first queens. I had 5, and was planning on 1 or 2 long term, but since I didn't need to move them into anything large anytime soon and they all ate the same foods, I kept all of them xD It's been about 3 years now and I'm down to 2 queens. If I were you, I'd keep all of them until they get to the point where you have to upgrade their nests, and then pick the best 2 or 3. I'm pretty soft hearted so I'm sure I'd just end up keeping all of them haha!

PublicInjury
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue May 25, 2021 8:02 pm
Location: US-Northern Midwest

Re: Welcome to the Camponotus Crew!

Post: # 80881Post PublicInjury
Mon Aug 09, 2021 1:46 pm

Good to hear, so far they've all been eating frozen feeder crickets and homegrown honey just fine. I've got my two "favs" with test tube portal expansions because the ants were getting too rambunctious and needed some more room to forage, and I only have two sense I was planning on only keeping two... I've got more supplies on the way at least.
It's going to be interesting to see what hibernation brings, from what I've heard the first hibernation either makes or breaks a colony and I haven't fully decided how I want to attempt to hibernate them, maybe I should try different colonies with different methods?

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