The AntsCanada Ant Forum's

All the nanitics in my C. pennsylvanicus died off. I removed the queen from the outworld and placed her with my other queens. She now how 8-10 more nanitics so hoping for the best.

One of my other C. pennsylvanicus queens has two nanitics and a couple of pupa, still a chance that she will make it as well. Have been feeding her honey and meal worm bits maybe she will start laying again soon.

Still have one C. penn queen with no nanitics, she does have a pupa and a few larvae.

Update on my main colony, moved my C. castaneus test tube into an outworld She has at least twelve nanitics, possibly more, it is hard to count them. They have been foraging on honey, they seem to love it. Fed them some chopped meal worm as well, so far they are not interested in that. If they do not eat meal worms in the next couple of days will try another source of protein. I am using a talcum powder alcohol barrier on top of packing tape. It seems to be working well thus far.

My other castaneus queen have around eight nanitics, looks like I may offer her on GAN soon.

My first ant season has been somewhat succesful, there have been a lot of ups and downs. Lost quite a few queens, altogether it looks like I will end up with four ant colonies. And since I only have a use for three of them will have one extra to sell on GAN. Going to order one thousand test tubes for next ant season. Next year is going to be fun .

Will put up some pictures when I have time, about to drive my son back to Auburn University, life has been hectic.

MCWren wrote: ↑

Thu Aug 25, 2016 12:13 pm

WillWithAnts wrote:Lots of camponotus ants have die-offs when they first start. Symptoms commonly seen are: relentless foraging/climbing, spastic movements, and eventually flailing to death. I've been on the forum on and off since it was new, and I'd say I have seen the same thing 4-5 times now. It can't be Vaseline, because some of the cases only use insect-a-slip as a barrier. We can only assume that it is natural, or at least common in captivity. Many Camponotus species seem to have to get over a small die-off in their niantic stage. More research is needed

Niantic lol.

Ya got me

Has been a while, quick update, my colonies never really got established, they would get up to about twelve nanitics then die off, then back up to 10 or 12, then die off, this went on for a while until eventually the queen died. Lost all the colonies. Been really busy so have not been looking for queens, found one today just chilling at a local park. Luckily my daughter was with me who just happens to carry containers in her purse at all times for catching insects . We put her in a container, brought her home and is now in a test tube. Not sure what it is, possibly a solenopsis, looks a little bigger than the ones I had previously. Will take pictures in a week or two after she gets settled. Hopefully will have eggs by then. Trying to disturb the ants less than I did previously and hoping for better results. Anyway will be ordering a case of 1000 test tubes soon. So looks like ant fever has taken hold once again.

So looks like ant fever has taken hold once again.

\

Keep us tuned! I really enjoy these updates!

Upon further inspection of the queen ant I realized there is no way it is a Solenopsis, only has one petiole. Posted pictures on another forum and they gave me an I'd of Camponotus discolor. Pics are blurry, my new phone sucks at taking macro pictures. Have ordered a decent loupe, hoping I will be able to take better pictures with it and be able to see close enough to use a key to identify. I tried to identify this one, could not see close enough to tell if it had an acid pore or not. After looking for an hour or two I posted pictures for an id.

Checked on my queen today, she appears healthy. She has 5 or 6 larvae. Had not checked on her in two weeks. Do not have time to get pictures unfortunately.

Caught another queen, watched a nuptial flight of fire ants. Caught a queen several hundred feet from the flight. She had ripped off her wings and was looking around. I noticed she has some sort of external parasite on her. Looked like a mite, anyway I posted a post about that in ant keeping. Will take some pictures before long, about to go see if I can find a few more. Btw the queen is a Solenopsis queen. Red fire ant.

I went back out and caught five more solenopsis queens, they had all removed their wings and were gathered around 100 foot from the ant hills that were having nuptial flights. Were lots of winged queens as well. I did not collect those since most of the hills were having nuptial flights I was not positive they had even flown. Anyway, season starting out decent. Have seven queens total, am determined to have a successful colony this year so will be catching queens until I have several colonies. If I get too many I can keep quite a few and can rehome the rest. Already have several college professors that would like a colony. And then there is GAN. Off and running, will go looking tonight to see if the Camponotus pennsylvanicus and C. castaneus are flying yet. There is a place close by that is usually covered in them when they fly. Want to collect quite a few more this year than last time. I think I had four or five of each last time. Would like to have 10 or so of each this year just to make sure I get a few colonies established. My daughter wants a pennsylvanicus colony, my wife wants one of the pennsylvanicus or castaneus colony. So we will keep at least 3 of them. Am pretty sure my son will want a colony for his apartment once he realizes how cool they are to watch. I have room for at least 5 or 6 colonies. Could probably make room for 10 or more if needed. Will have successful colonies this year .

Went out to a couple of spots where I caught quite a few Camponotus queens a couple years back. Have been checking these spots every day for the last week or two. It was June 3 last time I started catching C. castaneus queens. I went out at 10:30 then to a second spot at 11:00. Did not see any queens, I did however see a lot of males. Or at least am fairly sure they were males. I test tubed two of them and left the rest. If they shed their wings or lay eggs I will post a pic for an id. Any clue why there were so many males and no queens? I was wondering if I got there too late in the night. Or if only males flew tonight for some reason? Or if I was too early. Just makes no sense why there were hundreds of males, and did not see a single queen. Pretty sure the males were camponotus judging from the ones I observed previously.