Welcome to the Camponotus Crew!

[QJH2023]

what I've found is that most of my Camponotus ants will not eat insects that have already died. but you may have luck

[Hawkeye]

Hey all! I don't have any workers and it'll be a few months before I actually feed my colony some protein, but I don't know if I can feed them crickets that have died. I have reptiles and have a supply of crickets and mealworms that die fairly quickly, especially the crickets, they are adults. Would it be okay to feed these feeder insects that died naturally rather than being killed by me?

As long as they are still moist and haven't dried out, that should be fine.

[oreoisakitty]

Here's a good picture of my camponotus sp.



She has about 7 eggs. She's in a tupperware right now, the other containers I have are either too big or too small so I'm going to keep her in there!

[Hawkeye]

What a beauty!

[QJH2023]

[QJH2023]

[QJH2023]

my new colony

[Hawkeye]

my new colony

That looks like a single queen to me Well that and a dead housefly?

[Hawkeye]

Hi All,

My new queen and her ants are still going strong. One of the ants actually dug a tunnel out of the test tube and was wandering around in the arena, giving chase to a fruitfly. I didn't catch her bringing it back to the nest, but safe to say the ants are settling in nicely and apparently feel confident enough to gather food.
I placed some pieces of banana in a large test tube as a foodsource for the fruitflies next to the slices of apple. The ants might actually have a little nibble at this source of natural sugars too, once they discover it that is.

[SaturnsLastRing]

Hi, I caught a Camponotus queen las summer on a hike and I put her in a test tube set up. She was lost during a move and I found her test tube a week ago in my closet. She seems to have produced nanitics, but they died (presumably from lack of food. She is still alive, so I was wondering if she will produce new nanitics, and also if she will be fine waiting until fall to enter diapause or if I should induce it now. Basically what should I do to restart the colony? I offered her some honey which she ate.
Thanks.