Lasius Niger new colony timelaps

[totalvamp]

Hi everyone,

I have a Lasius Niger colony of about 15 ants and my plan was to timelapse it starting today.

Since we fish every now and then we keep maggots from the fishing store in our freezer.
Now I had the idea to get 2 of those and put them in the ants' outworld (it has soil so they can dig) and wait for them to pupate and feed them to the ants.
I put them in there yesterday and clogged up the ants entrance with some sand to give the maggots some time before they venture out.

This morning I see 2 maggots in the queens' chamber both still alive and covered in sand. I'm currently still wondering how they dragged them inside with such a small work force.

So I started my timelapse and here is the first result(1fps):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZh7UaA6gRw


I started a new timelapse again which I will keep running for 24 hours each and try to put them on youtube every day.

[totalvamp]

Accidentally stopped my timelapse.

Resulted in the following video of ants trying to bury the food.
Also I'm not quite sure why the queen suddenly started moving.

[totalvamp]

Well couldn't do 24 hour recording so it went to 8.

I found it quite interesting to see what some ants are doing, it looked like some ant was hurt and they took care of it.

[totalvamp]

Today I had a newborn, was cool to see how they pried open the shell and tended to the new sister.
She also had some erratic movement after she was born, walking and stumbling all over the place.

Her sisters ended up sometimes carrying her or even doing what looks like a tandem run.

They also kept moving moist sand into the nest to cover up their food. At first only 1 worker was assigned for this, but today 3 or 4 ventured out

Also had a pretty funny moment where the Queen started tending to her gaster and suddenly all the ants around her as well. After 2 or 3 seconds she fell over on her side.

See these 2 frame captures:

[NashAUS]

Love the camera set up mate, jealous! Look forward to watching more than the first vid once I finish work.

Lasius Niger super common in North America is it? Just noticing a fair amount of people keep them. I have a few Iridomyrmex workers, which are wide spread and aggressive to other specifies in Australia.

I've too noticed my guys helping injured ants, forcing the injured ant to stay near them and actually trying to stretch them out once they start curling up as if preparing to die. Very fascinating!

[MadVampy]

Thanks that was awesome to watch!

[totalvamp]

Unfortunately, my ants thought it was a good idea to migrate to the out area 1 day.
I noticed the nest was too dry so hydrated it well this time.

They today moved back in again.
Might start my timelapse again since now I can actually see them.