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You know I was going to go for my first trip overseas and was hoping to see different species of ants and then stuff happened and we didn't go.

I've caught so many crematogaster, but they are relatively difficult species to keep.

antnest8 wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 25, 2020 9:45 am

I've caught so many crematogaster, but they are relatively difficult species to keep.

I guess I got lucky. My first crematogaster is the only queen I've had success with so far. All my other queens of all other species ended up dying. I hope my new queen works out.

antnest8 wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 25, 2020 9:45 am

I've caught so many crematogaster, but they are relatively difficult species to keep.

I'm trying something different with my new crematogaster queen. All my other queens that I collected died when I placed them in a new test tube setup. I checked on my new queen a couple days after putting her in there and she was very unresponsive. I decided to connect her tube to a small outworld similar to my other one. I figure that maybe it's too humid for her in just the stopped up tube. This was about a week ago. As of today she is still alive and appears to be doing well. A couple days ago when I checked on her she was outside the tube in the outworld. Today she was back in the tube again. I placed a fruitfly in there today for her as my first crematogaster seemed to appreciate it. Incidentally, she still has her wings.

We'll have to see where it goes.

As of today, there are about 35 workers with my first queen, Black Widow, with a small pile of brood.

Short update. All's good. Not much activity. The first colony is very inactive. I have them in my buffet, not a fridge. Interestingly, the newest workers are still lighter colored even though they eclosed weeks ago. The new queen is still alive. She still has her wings. I placed a couple fruit flies for her but she hasn't touched them. I have fed either otherwise.

Update

The colony is doing well. I have mostly been feed them fruit flies over the winter. A few of the older workers have now died. The count appears to be over 50 workers now. Sadly, my second crematogaster queen didn't survive. The water in the main nest tube is almost dry so I'll need to be preparing a new tube for the nest shortly and possibly to nest layout adjustments at the same time.

My crematogaster queen also just got eggs a few days ago.

Update. Not a lot new. I think I'm up to 60 workers now with this colony with near an equal number of eggs. I haven't fed them much since the winter and they had slowed down quite a bit. Last week I feed them a giant dying spider that I found on my kitchen floor. They were quite happy about that and made quick work of the spider's body, but left the legs behind this time.

On Thursday, 2 days ago, I was walking by the river and found what I believe to be a tetramorium queen. She was scurrying across the sidewalk and had already broken off her wings. I had picked up tetramorium queens before who still had their wings on and they always died on me. However, I was more hopeful about this one since she had already broken off her wings.

I didn't bring any containers with me! I did happen to have my airpods with me so I stuck her in one of the slots in the airpod case. Later in my walk I stumbled across an ant dragging a another large bug on the sidewalk. The bug was barely alive and I could only see it's antennae moving. Seeing as this bug was interesting to the ants here, I decided to steal it to feed to my crematogasters. I went to also stick in in my airpod case, which was I when I realized just how big this bug was. I needed to use a stick to guide it lengthwise into the opposite slot from the one that had the tetramorium queen and it took up most of the length of the slot.

Anyway, I put the bug in with the crematogasters and they loved it! Before long at least a quarter of my colony was out working on it. By comparison think of 10 to 15 people along side a giant great white shark! And to my surprise, they still managed to move the bug through a long vinyl tube from the outworld to their nest. The bug barely even fit into the opening of the tube. I came back the next day and the bug was nowhere to be found which means they must have moved it into a 4 way junction that I can't see into. Today, a number of the workers gasters are just enormously gorged and look like they are going to burst!

And as a final surprise! Two days after I picked up my tetramorium queen, she already has eggs! YAY!

Omg just reading a few posts on this topic is making me nostalgic , mainly because it reminded me of my first Crematogaster colony. The time the colony has around 20-25 workers their test tube is getting moldy so I decided to move them to a new test tube, but after a few days the colony hasn't moved and the queen mysteriously died.