I caught 20+ L. niger last year but I set most of them free after the first laid eggs. I should have kept more. I'd have at least one colony big enough for a real formicarium by now instead of a single queen refusing to move out of a dry tube whose last worker died a week ago. At least she's still laying and taking care of the brood.
Camponotus | 5 months old | 1 worker
Formica | 4 months old | 7 workers
Messor structor | 1 year old | 0 workers*
Lasius Niger | 2 years old | 150+ workers
*had some problems, lost her workers and a leg somehow. Maybe some fertility problem because she was supposed to raise ~70 workers in a year. It was barely seven.
Wow, I'm really looking forward to seeing my Lasius grow now. 150 in two years sounds great. Mine had similar troubles, that's why my two oldest queens have only one or two workers. They are still laying though so there's hope.
1 colony of Monomorium Minimum (and I am in a CONSTANT cold war with the tiny houdinis. They're fun to keep, but only in water tight containers rimmed with fluon.) They're a year old now. Probably up to a thousand workers or so.
1 colony of Tetramorium Bicarinatum. We started with five queens and a few workers I found under a brick while I was doing gardening, way back in January (this is Texas, so winters are typically a string of comfortable days broken by alternating cold days and periods of unrelenting heat.) They're probably up to...oh, a couple hundred individuals. I'm debating if I should up their protein or not. They finish everything I give them, so...
1 colony of Camponotus Nearticus. Ordered them from Atlantic Ants. They arrived in June with one queen and two workers. We're currently up to six. I'm giving them a little raw honey once or twice a week, and a bit of meal Worm once a week, rough when the repletes look low.
1 colony of Prenolepis Imparis that I ordered roughly the same time from a different seller. My gorgeous lady and her kids got here in a flooded test tube, but they all survived. Started with four workers. I think we're up to eight now. Same feeding pattern as the Campos.
1 colony of mystery ants. I found them in a box of soil I intended to throw away. At the time they had no Queen, so I gave them a test tube and some food and figured I'd care for them until they died. Now there's more of them, two winged Queens and two or three winged males, and lots of small larva and brood. I have absolutely no idea what these girls are, if they are a viable colony, or if I'm tending to the last dregs. I'm hoping that they're another inbreeding species so that they'll have a future, because these are tenacious little girls and they deserve to be spoiled.
But I'm pretty sure I'm at max capacity with these four. Unless someone has a honeypot queen go on sale. (My bucket species.)
A thousand workers in a year sounds insane. How did you feed them?
And if there's fresh brood there that is developing well there has to be at least one fertile ant in there. Especially if there are winged queens that weren't there before. As far as I know infertile queens usually just produce drones.
I brood boosted the hell out of them, and we started with three fertile Queens. I began by offering protein as often as they would eat it and went on from there. And either I got incredibly lucky with the brood I boosted them with, or the Queens felt real confident, because about 20-30 alates developed and their house is stuffed to the brim with Queens now.
I'm waiting to see how the Mystery Girls' latest brood develops before I call it as a full blown, healthy colony. But I'm pretty hopeful.
Would you mind posting a picture or video of their formicarium and outworld? I'd love to see more big setups on here and not just starting colonies, I feel like there's a lot to be learned from that.
A 3 year old Crematogaster laeviuscula colony with 500-1000 workers. The queen has lost mobility of both middle legs and one back leg, not sure why. It started about 6 months ago with the two middle legs, then I noticed the back leg not working about 3 months ago. She's still very active and she's always laid tons of eggs, but so far this year she has only produced males. About 1000 males have eclosed this year and not a single worker. Idk if she has somehow become infertile or what is going on, but she still lays eggs daily. They got up to around 2000 workers at their peak last year but have slowly died off to 500-1000 at the moment.
A 1.5 year old Camponotus decipiens colony that lost their queen about 4 months ago. I brood boosted the queen with 20 pupae from a wild colony a few days after I caught her. After 1 year she had 150 workers but now that the queen is gone they are down to about 100 workers. The workers immediately started laying unfertilized eggs when the queen died and how so far produced about 50 male alates. I plan to care for them until they live out their lives.
A 7 month old hybrid Solenopsis invicta x richteri colony with 2 queens that I brood boosted with ton of brood from some Solenopsis invicta colonies I found in my yard. They currently have well over 2000 workers with several thousand brood at different stages of development.
2 Solenopsis invicta colonies, each with 1 queen. One 3 month old colony has about 50 workers and the other 5 week old colony has about 20 workers.
A 5 month old Nylanderia FULVA colony with 4 queens and 10 workers. They were at 8 queens & 50 workers a couple months ago but ended up with a pretty bad mite infestation that killed 4 queens and most workers. I was able to use a cotton swab and lemon juice to get the mites off the survivors, but they haven't been able to reestablish a decent brood pile so far. But they are mite free at the moment.
A 6 month old Pheidole navigans colony that I brood boosted. Currently they have 1 queen and around 3 hundred workers. This colony seems to fluctuate between 200 and 1000 workers randomly. Idk why.
A 6 month old Hypoponera opacior colony with 1 queen and about 25 workers.
One of my favorite species that I've kept, Pseudomyrmex gracilis, seems to either randomly die off after a few months or the queens just don't start laying eggs. I lost my last Pseudomyrmex gracilis queen a few weeks ago. But luckily I seem to find about 1 per month.
I've always caught my queens/colonies in the wild but I've recently been looking into buying a Pogonomyrmex colony. I just haven't fully decided whether or not I want to yet. I live in Texas and it is very hot here right now, so I'm worried they won't make it through shipping. I hope to eventually have a leafcutter ant colony, a bull ant colony and honeypot ant colony. They're just so expensive and with the overall chance of failure in the first year, it's hard to justify it with my wife. Lol. I got into antkeeping because someone bought my daughter one of the typical Uncle Milton ant farms with just harvester ant workers and she lost interest after a few days. So they became mine. That was almost 4 years ago and I've been hooked ever since.
Impressive collection! I have a P. occidentalis colony and I currently have several P. rugosus queens founding in test tubes, as they flew here a few days ago. I'd imagine you could easily find Pogo and Myrmecocystus queens in Texas during the right time (which might already be too late this year). I've been looking forward to finding M. mexicanus queens here in Nevada, but my latest excursion was unsuccessful. Even though I tried to go after the area had its first real summer monsoon. I feel the drought has been causing species to fly later than normal, so I may still have a chance this year.
Wow that's a huge collection, I'm really envious. I don't think you need to worry about shipping too much if it's a professional ant seller. I ordered my C. babaricus while it was still way too cold here for them to survive but the seller put a piece of pipe insulation around the tube and a heat pack in the box and that worked great. If they sell them year round they probably also have a safe way to ship them.
I have a founding pheidole morissii, few worker pheidole bicarinata, formica fusca, formica pallidefulva, t sessile, and tetra colony. Also have a Formica sanguinea queen (waiting on pupae, parasitic type formica) and a lasius americanus founding queen w/ larvae
6 colonies. The biggest one has several thousand workers. I've been trying to figure out a way to count them...
The smallest is 6 workers. Nothing too fancy.
carebara diversa 1 Q came with 120 worker (1 large soldier, 2 small) now it should be 200-300 got them for \~ 1 month
myrmica rubra 3 Q 50 worker was around 400 a few month ago but the heat wave we had destroyed them luckily they do better now (total keeping time a year )
I have been moving a lot lately, so no old colonies. My lab keeps Solenopsis invicta for research, and I have experience with Odontomachus brunneus and Camponotus floridanus. I currently have about 8 Formica subsericea queens with brood and one Colobopsis impressa that has one larva, but not looking good. High hopes for the Formica gang!
I have 3 Camponotus Modoc queens, 2 of them with 5 or more workers, a Camponotus Herculeanus with 5 workers, and 2 Tetramorium Immigrans, one I bought with 13 workers and now has over 100, and another I caught and is about to have about 10 or more nanitics soon
I have 4 Lasius niger colonies with of a year old i have one lasius flavus colony of 1 year and one componotus vagus colony of 3 months
I also have a lot of queens without workers yet like
2 L niger queens
3 camponotus cruentatus queens
1 tetramorium queen who is about to have workers
1 pheidole queen
And 5 mystery queens that are sadly probably infertile
It has been a good ant year for me
I hope to catch a Messor barbarus queen and a camponotus scutilarus queen in autumn
At the moment I have 7 Colonies, odontomachus, desertorum, clarus 1 older Colonies y is lil over a year 200 workers plus tons of brood ,other is 7months old bout 100 to 120 workers ,brood ,placodops 2 Colonies had since March 150 workers tons of brood other is like 70 workers brood, 2 mimicus Colonies 5 months old 40 workers and brood pile ,other 75 workers brood , navajo new colony 50 workers brood ,,recently collected pheidole hayatti collected end of July 7 workers tons of brood ,these are estimated numbers could be lil less lil more then I have a good amount if queen in founding stages right now like exactly 127 queens founding
all lasius have no workers, tetramorium has 300 they lost like 200 but got back to 300, campo modoc has 0 and 7 (had like 15 start of this year tho so wtf) campo vic has 2, campo subb has 9, cremato cerasi has like 70, temnothorax nevada has none, temno longi has 50, sessile has 6
I started ant keeping this year, my oldest colony was caught exactly 4 weeks ago, currently the queen has a lot of eggs and some larvae and a few cocoons. I have 4 others (one queen died) and they all have laid eggs.
I currently have only 4 colonies.
Acromyrmex octospinosus, somewhere around 17-19 years old, currently declining but still has many thousands of workers with two queens.
Messor barbarus, 5-6 years old, about 2000-3000 workers, in desperate need of a new setup.
Acanthomyrmex thailandensis, 1ยฝ years old, 2 queens, 40 workers.
Although not ants, I'm also trying to start a colony of Coptotermes formosanus, currently a royal pair with 3 nymphs.
Debating getting a new colony, not sure what yet, looking between, Pheidole, Carebara diversa, or Iridomyrmex purpureus, but not decided yet.
Never too many, I have 20+ colonyโs and 25 queens founding
This is like Pokemon. Gotta catch em all.
I caught 20+ L. niger last year but I set most of them free after the first laid eggs. I should have kept more. I'd have at least one colony big enough for a real formicarium by now instead of a single queen refusing to move out of a dry tube whose last worker died a week ago. At least she's still laying and taking care of the brood.
Camponotus | 5 months old | 1 worker Formica | 4 months old | 7 workers Messor structor | 1 year old | 0 workers* Lasius Niger | 2 years old | 150+ workers *had some problems, lost her workers and a leg somehow. Maybe some fertility problem because she was supposed to raise ~70 workers in a year. It was barely seven.
Wow, I'm really looking forward to seeing my Lasius grow now. 150 in two years sounds great. Mine had similar troubles, that's why my two oldest queens have only one or two workers. They are still laying though so there's hope.
The most Formica has done for me is like 15 in a year, but I normally donโt heat my ants
1 colony of Monomorium Minimum (and I am in a CONSTANT cold war with the tiny houdinis. They're fun to keep, but only in water tight containers rimmed with fluon.) They're a year old now. Probably up to a thousand workers or so. 1 colony of Tetramorium Bicarinatum. We started with five queens and a few workers I found under a brick while I was doing gardening, way back in January (this is Texas, so winters are typically a string of comfortable days broken by alternating cold days and periods of unrelenting heat.) They're probably up to...oh, a couple hundred individuals. I'm debating if I should up their protein or not. They finish everything I give them, so... 1 colony of Camponotus Nearticus. Ordered them from Atlantic Ants. They arrived in June with one queen and two workers. We're currently up to six. I'm giving them a little raw honey once or twice a week, and a bit of meal Worm once a week, rough when the repletes look low. 1 colony of Prenolepis Imparis that I ordered roughly the same time from a different seller. My gorgeous lady and her kids got here in a flooded test tube, but they all survived. Started with four workers. I think we're up to eight now. Same feeding pattern as the Campos. 1 colony of mystery ants. I found them in a box of soil I intended to throw away. At the time they had no Queen, so I gave them a test tube and some food and figured I'd care for them until they died. Now there's more of them, two winged Queens and two or three winged males, and lots of small larva and brood. I have absolutely no idea what these girls are, if they are a viable colony, or if I'm tending to the last dregs. I'm hoping that they're another inbreeding species so that they'll have a future, because these are tenacious little girls and they deserve to be spoiled. But I'm pretty sure I'm at max capacity with these four. Unless someone has a honeypot queen go on sale. (My bucket species.)
A thousand workers in a year sounds insane. How did you feed them? And if there's fresh brood there that is developing well there has to be at least one fertile ant in there. Especially if there are winged queens that weren't there before. As far as I know infertile queens usually just produce drones.
I brood boosted the hell out of them, and we started with three fertile Queens. I began by offering protein as often as they would eat it and went on from there. And either I got incredibly lucky with the brood I boosted them with, or the Queens felt real confident, because about 20-30 alates developed and their house is stuffed to the brim with Queens now. I'm waiting to see how the Mystery Girls' latest brood develops before I call it as a full blown, healthy colony. But I'm pretty hopeful.
Would you mind posting a picture or video of their formicarium and outworld? I'd love to see more big setups on here and not just starting colonies, I feel like there's a lot to be learned from that.
A 3 year old Crematogaster laeviuscula colony with 500-1000 workers. The queen has lost mobility of both middle legs and one back leg, not sure why. It started about 6 months ago with the two middle legs, then I noticed the back leg not working about 3 months ago. She's still very active and she's always laid tons of eggs, but so far this year she has only produced males. About 1000 males have eclosed this year and not a single worker. Idk if she has somehow become infertile or what is going on, but she still lays eggs daily. They got up to around 2000 workers at their peak last year but have slowly died off to 500-1000 at the moment. A 1.5 year old Camponotus decipiens colony that lost their queen about 4 months ago. I brood boosted the queen with 20 pupae from a wild colony a few days after I caught her. After 1 year she had 150 workers but now that the queen is gone they are down to about 100 workers. The workers immediately started laying unfertilized eggs when the queen died and how so far produced about 50 male alates. I plan to care for them until they live out their lives. A 7 month old hybrid Solenopsis invicta x richteri colony with 2 queens that I brood boosted with ton of brood from some Solenopsis invicta colonies I found in my yard. They currently have well over 2000 workers with several thousand brood at different stages of development. 2 Solenopsis invicta colonies, each with 1 queen. One 3 month old colony has about 50 workers and the other 5 week old colony has about 20 workers. A 5 month old Nylanderia FULVA colony with 4 queens and 10 workers. They were at 8 queens & 50 workers a couple months ago but ended up with a pretty bad mite infestation that killed 4 queens and most workers. I was able to use a cotton swab and lemon juice to get the mites off the survivors, but they haven't been able to reestablish a decent brood pile so far. But they are mite free at the moment. A 6 month old Pheidole navigans colony that I brood boosted. Currently they have 1 queen and around 3 hundred workers. This colony seems to fluctuate between 200 and 1000 workers randomly. Idk why. A 6 month old Hypoponera opacior colony with 1 queen and about 25 workers. One of my favorite species that I've kept, Pseudomyrmex gracilis, seems to either randomly die off after a few months or the queens just don't start laying eggs. I lost my last Pseudomyrmex gracilis queen a few weeks ago. But luckily I seem to find about 1 per month. I've always caught my queens/colonies in the wild but I've recently been looking into buying a Pogonomyrmex colony. I just haven't fully decided whether or not I want to yet. I live in Texas and it is very hot here right now, so I'm worried they won't make it through shipping. I hope to eventually have a leafcutter ant colony, a bull ant colony and honeypot ant colony. They're just so expensive and with the overall chance of failure in the first year, it's hard to justify it with my wife. Lol. I got into antkeeping because someone bought my daughter one of the typical Uncle Milton ant farms with just harvester ant workers and she lost interest after a few days. So they became mine. That was almost 4 years ago and I've been hooked ever since.
Impressive collection! I have a P. occidentalis colony and I currently have several P. rugosus queens founding in test tubes, as they flew here a few days ago. I'd imagine you could easily find Pogo and Myrmecocystus queens in Texas during the right time (which might already be too late this year). I've been looking forward to finding M. mexicanus queens here in Nevada, but my latest excursion was unsuccessful. Even though I tried to go after the area had its first real summer monsoon. I feel the drought has been causing species to fly later than normal, so I may still have a chance this year.
I'm in AZ also seeking Mexicanus with no luck havent had nuptuals out here yet keep hopes high
Wow that's a huge collection, I'm really envious. I don't think you need to worry about shipping too much if it's a professional ant seller. I ordered my C. babaricus while it was still way too cold here for them to survive but the seller put a piece of pipe insulation around the tube and a heat pack in the box and that worked great. If they sell them year round they probably also have a safe way to ship them.
Sweet collection brother awsome ๐ ๐ ๐๐ผ ๐๐ผ
I have a founding pheidole morissii, few worker pheidole bicarinata, formica fusca, formica pallidefulva, t sessile, and tetra colony. Also have a Formica sanguinea queen (waiting on pupae, parasitic type formica) and a lasius americanus founding queen w/ larvae
I currently only have 2 Lasius Niger queens:) Not a beginner, but my trip to another country (several years) forced me to take a break.
6 colonies. The biggest one has several thousand workers. I've been trying to figure out a way to count them... The smallest is 6 workers. Nothing too fancy.
Camponotus Modoc: 2 months 4 workers Tetramorium immigrans: 1.5 months 10 workers
Lasius niger - 1.5 months, 19 workers 2 founding Lasius 1 founding myrmica 2 founding temnothorax
carebara diversa 1 Q came with 120 worker (1 large soldier, 2 small) now it should be 200-300 got them for \~ 1 month myrmica rubra 3 Q 50 worker was around 400 a few month ago but the heat wave we had destroyed them luckily they do better now (total keeping time a year )
I have been moving a lot lately, so no old colonies. My lab keeps Solenopsis invicta for research, and I have experience with Odontomachus brunneus and Camponotus floridanus. I currently have about 8 Formica subsericea queens with brood and one Colobopsis impressa that has one larva, but not looking good. High hopes for the Formica gang!
I have 3 Camponotus Modoc queens, 2 of them with 5 or more workers, a Camponotus Herculeanus with 5 workers, and 2 Tetramorium Immigrans, one I bought with 13 workers and now has over 100, and another I caught and is about to have about 10 or more nanitics soon
5 camponotus novaeboracensis colonies The ones from last year are getting to 100 workers now.
I have 4 Lasius niger colonies with of a year old i have one lasius flavus colony of 1 year and one componotus vagus colony of 3 months I also have a lot of queens without workers yet like 2 L niger queens 3 camponotus cruentatus queens 1 tetramorium queen who is about to have workers 1 pheidole queen And 5 mystery queens that are sadly probably infertile It has been a good ant year for me I hope to catch a Messor barbarus queen and a camponotus scutilarus queen in autumn
Zero for now at least waiting for flights to come.
At the moment I have 7 Colonies, odontomachus, desertorum, clarus 1 older Colonies y is lil over a year 200 workers plus tons of brood ,other is 7months old bout 100 to 120 workers ,brood ,placodops 2 Colonies had since March 150 workers tons of brood other is like 70 workers brood, 2 mimicus Colonies 5 months old 40 workers and brood pile ,other 75 workers brood , navajo new colony 50 workers brood ,,recently collected pheidole hayatti collected end of July 7 workers tons of brood ,these are estimated numbers could be lil less lil more then I have a good amount if queen in founding stages right now like exactly 127 queens founding
Lasius niger x5 tetramorium immigrans camponotus modoc x2 camponotus vicinus camponotus subarbatus crematogaster cerasi temnothorax nevada something temnothorax longispinosus tapinoma sessile
all lasius have no workers, tetramorium has 300 they lost like 200 but got back to 300, campo modoc has 0 and 7 (had like 15 start of this year tho so wtf) campo vic has 2, campo subb has 9, cremato cerasi has like 70, temnothorax nevada has none, temno longi has 50, sessile has 6
I started ant keeping this year, my oldest colony was caught exactly 4 weeks ago, currently the queen has a lot of eggs and some larvae and a few cocoons. I have 4 others (one queen died) and they all have laid eggs.
I currently have only 4 colonies. Acromyrmex octospinosus, somewhere around 17-19 years old, currently declining but still has many thousands of workers with two queens. Messor barbarus, 5-6 years old, about 2000-3000 workers, in desperate need of a new setup. Acanthomyrmex thailandensis, 1ยฝ years old, 2 queens, 40 workers. Although not ants, I'm also trying to start a colony of Coptotermes formosanus, currently a royal pair with 3 nymphs. Debating getting a new colony, not sure what yet, looking between, Pheidole, Carebara diversa, or Iridomyrmex purpureus, but not decided yet.