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I have three Camponotus pennsylvanicus, one camponotus novaeboracensis.

My campos this summer seem to "stuck" as larva. The brood they had when they came out of hibernation/diapause all reached cocoons and hatched. The latest batches of eggs, which they have a significant amount of eggs, seem to be stuck as larva? Its been I think a month, maybe 2 since I first noticed that they may be kinda slow in developing.

During the winter they were all kept in a wine fridge at 5c and hibernated for about 4 months oct to feb, and took em out early march.

At first I worried that maybe they had been kept in too "dark" an area (my bedroom, but with the curtains closed most of the time) so I moved them over to the window part of my room, gave them a special shelf with lots of access to the sun and kept the curtains open, and have two lamps pointed at their general area; room temp is 28c usually.

I've been feeding a mix of cricket and superworms and they seem well fed; i've been giving some bits of apples to ***** sugar water. Originally I had little feeders, then I switched to test tubes but the sugar water test tube setup I've heard might've been a bad idea so I've switched back to the feeders.

Hey,

Well usually the ants prefer the dark. I could also imagine that their setup is not humid enough. Maybe add a little bit of water. Usually camponotus prefers it dry but they also like some areas a little humid.
On https://www.antstore.net/shop/de/Ameisen/Ameisen-aus-Amerika/Camponotus-pennsylvanicus.html they mention that they have an average development time of 2 months. And Average means that it can be also more or less. I'd give them some more time with that. Not that you mistake the cocoons for larvae and the other way around or they are hidding their cocooned workers away while putting the larvae in the viewable area.

If their setup is big enough you could also place a small heating pad close to their nest or in a corner of it. But don't cover the whole nest with heating mats now.

Hi! Thanks for responding, if it helps here's my setup:



Basically as you can see they are all in test tube setups, so they can't really hide their brood; the actual "nest" tubes I have covered with paper sleeves so they have adequate amounts of darkness; the only thing I am uncertain of is humidity. I have heatlamps pointing at them but perhaps they are not powerful enough? They are year two, and their current brood piles have not had any progress while my myrmica have been through 2-3 cycles so far of brood.

How warm is it inside of the room in general? Values in °C please as I have no idea about Fahrenheit.
How humit is it inside of the room? At least if you have also a hydro meter

Also an interesting setup. I think I would unplug the colonies from the setups and keep them just in one testtube. Not that they find it too spacious. :/

I also don't think that there is much difference in their growth since your initial post.

Room temp is usually between 24c (at night) and 26c to 28c during the day (depending if its a hot day or not, I'm in Canada).

I had a device to tell me humidity but I can't seem to find it. My Weather app claims its 40%.

My novo's current brood in the main tube.


I managed to find the humidity thing, it claims 60% humidity in ant room.

All of my campos are all crowding together in the main tubes in each setup. They have around 20-30 workers each, I was kinda hoping they'd be more active than this in year 2 so its worrying me.

Well. I guess all you can do is offer them some protein and maybe some honey. I don't have much other advice. :/