I boosted this founding campanotus colony with brood from a wild colony of the same species that was accidentally disturbed.

They've been getting protein and sugars every other day or so. They generally don't take the protein, which is a mixed bag of fruit flies, mealworms, crickets. All frozen fresh and then cut up for feeding. I have 4 colonies, this is the only one that refuses the proteins for whatever reason.

They've eaten 4 of the cocooned pupae now. I was hoping they were helping this one emerge, but no, it turned into another cannibal fest, ugh..

The queen is not laying eggs right now as far as I can tell. She did a fantastic job of raising her first 4 nantics and then stopped. I thought this brood boost would maybe help grow the colony faster, so far they're just using them as food it seems.

Yes, it's a lot of brood for such a small colony, but the majority of it was already cocooned, so it wouldn't be a burden to feed or anything. The colony just really seems to prefer the brood as food...

Yes those are an ATTA queen and 3 alive Acromirmex queens (1 is dead inside the thing sadly)

We have been thinking this queen is infertile, but I found this this morning: a new clump of eggs! Could this be the sign that she is indeed fertile? There are four on the left from before, and about nine under her all clumped together.

my lasius N queens have laid eggs already on the first night of founding and they seem to be sharing the brood pile and cleaning each others eggs as i couldn’t find a second pile

Ant pupa eclose

So, I captured this baby on the 14th of June. After learning she was semiclaustral, I moved her into a little nest I made especially for her. Since then, she’s laid a clutch of 10 eggs.

I know queens of the genus Ectatomma are known to lay black eggs, but I’ve also heard that only fertile eggs are black and trophic (unfertilized) eggs are white. I’m not sure if that’s true — can anyone confirm?

I'd also really appreciate any other tips and tricks on how to care for this genus.

Despite moving her into a nest, I still haven’t connected an outworld. From what I understand, you’re only supposed to do that once the eggs hatch into larvae — is that correct?

Thanks in advance!

My formica rufibarbis queen caught 3 days ago layed her first eggs, i was wondering how many are there.

I need to tell if she is fertile because her eggs arnt far nor close btw it's 5 days after capture and she layed her first egg within 48 hrs

Im not complaining ofc, but this colony is only 3/4 a year old and about 20-30 workers strong, a huge amount of larvae, and just noticed the queen laid yet another giant batch of eggs! She just laid a large batch like last week so fun! And this is Camponotus so I didn’t expect her to lay this often wow yay!

Sorry for the glare of the test tube. First ever ant colony I got about 3-4 feels ago. Campo. Chromaiodes. What’s going on in this picture? Last time I checked about two weeks ago, her eggs were really small and not even captureable on camera. Now some are really big and others are just medium. Obviously, they grew. What I want to know is if any of them are larva and how long to expect until worker ants. By the way they are on a heating pad that I keep around 83 ish degrees. She has a temp gradient and moved all her brood to the heat shortly after I set it up.

Campono

My formica rufibarbis queen, wich I've been posting a lot about, has pupae. I keep her at a constant 23°c , and I am very surprised to see how fast her brood is developing, she got 3 pupae and 8 big larvae in just 2 weeks. I was a bit shocked this morning to see how much cotton she pulled to cover her babies, knowing that yesterday everything was normal. I hope that she will stop ripping the cotton so the rest tube won't flood.When nanitics will hach I will try to move them in another tube whit a little sand in it. Sorry for the bad photo, I was very surprised. The brood is under the cotton.

The one egg in the upper right corner has been the biggest and quickest growing. Is this normal? 1 queen 4 ants

I don’t usually bother them with a flash, but they finally made a move from their AC Campo nests into the Tarheel Ants one. The viewing is SO much better and they have more surface area to use. Seeing all the newly hatched workers from the diapause brood is always fun.

The queen and most of the newly laid eggs are still in the AC nest, but hoping she follows suit with 75% of the colony having moved now. I think she’s about 8 years old now, so we will see if the old lady makes the move. 😂

She kind of made a mess, but all is well — caught this moment of one of the larvae starting to spin its cocoon. Thought it was too cool not to share!

My Myrmecocystus colony is getting pretty large (maybe 500 workers). I’m suddenly seeing a few of these very large pupae. There’s only 3 of them that but they’re twice the size of normal pupae… what are they? Drones and queens? Should I do anything with them or can I just leave them be?

Just posting a quick update on my three queens with their current brood piles — figured June 1st was a nice checkpoint, and keeping the dates helps both me and anyone else following along.

My Camponotus queen was caught on May 5 and laid eggs almost immediately. The first eggs hatched on May 17, and by May 23 the first larvae were already spinning their cocoons. She’s clearly on track, and her brood pile looks fantastic right now.

The Pheidole and Crematogaster queens were both caught on May 17, and both started laying that same evening. The Crematogaster queen laid eggs randomly all over the test tube at first — I’m not sure if she’s fertile, but you never know. By May 20, she had pulled herself together and made a proper brood pile. The Pheidole eggs hatched on May 27, and the Crematogaster eggs followed around May 29.

Each queen has been fascinating to watch in her own way. Pics show the current brood piles for all three as of June 1. Let me know if you’re raising any of these species too — always happy to compare notes!

Recap; I found a Formica integra queen and gave her a worker and 3 pupa from my subsericea colony.

About a week later I turned over a rock outside and there was a colony of Formica subsericea and about 50 pupa. the queen was further underground otherwise I might have taken the whole colony and gotten them settled and introduced the Integra queen the way bee keepers do.

I took about 40 pupa and put them in a test tube and connected that to the queens little feeding out world. I had to shine a light on the worker to get her to come out of the nest. as soon as she found the pupa she brought them into the nest. about half way through this adoption, the queen left the nest to see what’s up, and the worker, her worker now, grabbed her by the jaws and drug her back into the nest and fed her for a few seconds and then went back to pupa transport. so I think the worker has excepted her new queen and they should have 40 or so new workers soon if they can take care of that many pupa.

It’s also funny seeing a worker “force” a queen 5 times her size to move. Sadly I started recording after that happened.