First time Oregon poster showing off Camponotous Novaeboracensis.

[WarPKUt]

Queen is sitting pretty awaiting her third year reign. Around 200 eggs from each stage of development, many silk cocoons. From year 1 to 2 she went from 4 workers to a little over 70. Caught a deep wood termite mound that I keep in their outworld, some scouts have been poking their heads out the last few weeks and discovered it. For some reason the queen loves basking in the sunlight and using the see through tube as her main egg chamber. Great for taking photos, wish I had a better camera .

Just thought I would share!

https://imgur.com/a9X6RCl
https://imgur.com/zfFY83B
https://imgur.com/TANmTcg
https://imgur.com/KDNnydC

[SolenopsisKeeper]

Queen is sitting pretty awaiting her third year reign. Around 200 eggs from each stage of development, many silk cocoons. From year 1 to 2 she went from 4 workers to a little over 70. Caught a deep wood termite mound that I keep in their outworld, some scouts have been poking their heads out the last few weeks and discovered it. For some reason the queen loves basking in the sunlight and using the see through tube as her main egg chamber. Great for taking photos, wish I had a better camera .

Just thought I would share!

https://imgur.com/a9X6RCl
https://imgur.com/zfFY83B
https://imgur.com/TANmTcg
https://imgur.com/KDNnydC

Is the nest kept dark? Ants can get used to light, most easy to do in Camponotus spp, but I have never tried as it makes a problem when moving them

[WarPKUt]

The outworld is up on the table by a window I use to ventilate. Usually the tubes and outworld stay fairly ambient until around 5PM when I get some direct sunlight through the window that warms the hybrid nest and lightens the tubes.
I only open the hybrid nest lid maybe once every 2 weeks and its in the late afternoon. Mostly just to check for mold buildup if any, which at this point there is none. They usually bring all the eggs into this tube during the day and bring them back into the hybrid nest during the night. They primarily stay in the chamber just inside from this tube in the darkness on top of the perforated holes for water. Sometimes I wonder if I got the humidity wrong and should add more water (to ease this paranoia I usually just keep a test tube with water in a cotton stop attached, when they hibernated this last winter they all clustered back into the attached test tube.

Been wondering if the heat from the direct sun is favorable for the development of the larvae. Since I have termites and springtails in the outworld I usually keep it fairly damp and that could be a well ventilated area since it is attached to a layer of charcoal.

Either way the population is booming! I caught another queen around the same time who has had a rough start, she lost her first 3 workers and is on her second batch (going into this season with 4 workers 1 of which was a stolen larvae from a ant colony on my back porch she raised herself, she is almost the size of a major xD). She is also a Camponotus novaeboracensis which I hear can have multiple queen colonies but I have no idea how I would go about introducing her. She originally accepted some extra workers I introduced by freezing but the workers ended up ganging up on her and I had to intervene to save her. Since then she only accepts Larvae and eggs which I may be using this queen to give her a boost.
This is only their second year so still fairly young.

I got a Camponotous Modoc getting off the ground this year as well (8 workers) so fairly excited!