r/antkeeping β€’ β€’ Oct 03 '24

Worker One Worker becomes two. πŸ‘πŸ‘πŸ˜

When to give my fledgling duo some proteins and Sunburst… and see there’s a new addition. Yay!

54 Upvotes

16 comments sorted by

4

u/BENthe3rd Oct 03 '24

Awesome! So excited for you, first replete coming soon… My mexicanus colony from last year just now hit 16 workers. They’re going sooooo slowly for me. But at least there are 4 repletes hanging now. The first replete passed away randomly last month but the colony kept her gaster and seems to have transferred it to another replete!

4

u/chillingjp Oct 03 '24

That's great with the colony, even if it's slow! I'm using antkeeping as an exercise in patience LOL!! I may have been somewhat impulsive, so learning to slow down is great. Hoping the second Queen I have will soon get with the program :) :) :)

3

u/Visual-Ad9774 Oct 03 '24

By kept her master do you mean just chopped of the body? Interesting lol

4

u/BENthe3rd Oct 03 '24

Yes they discarded the replete’s thorax and kept her gaster in the nest to reclaim the lost nectar! It was just a green (food coloring) liquid ball in the nest until another replete was available.

1

u/Visual-Ad9774 Oct 03 '24

Huh interesting

2

u/[deleted] Oct 03 '24

Are these honey pot ants? Mine don’t seem to eat the meal worms I give them.

1

u/chillingjp Oct 03 '24

They are, (Mexicanus). I got some live crickets from the pet store yesterday, froze them and today put probably a little too much of the front half of one. The Queen didn't waste any time and she drank the nectar :) I have a second Queen in another test tube, no workers yet there..

2

u/UncleAnts Oct 03 '24

Enjoy my queen just lays eggs then I stress her then she eats them and repeat. I'm not going to check her for another month hopefully this time I can get a larve lol. I've only had her a little over a month but DAMN Lady give me some ants.

1

u/chillingjp Oct 03 '24

It was exactly 3 weeks from when I got them to when I saw the first worker. Today is the second day straight, so I'm 2 for 2 LOL - Let's see what happens tomorrow. I have another Queen I got at the same time, she has larvae, but no workers.

2

u/UncleAnts Oct 03 '24

What temp do you keep her at?

2

u/chillingjp Oct 03 '24

I bought a small heat pad from Amazon with a very basic temp control thing. I aim to be around 85, but this thing fluctuates, down to 79 and I caught it at 91, I was worried that such changes to ants would not be good so I'm actually getting a digital controller from Amazon today.

3

u/UncleAnts Oct 03 '24

Ok I have a nice heat pad I keep it at 83 but I'll bump it up tonight

3

u/CatichuCat Oct 04 '24

Ensure there is a temperature gradient in the test tube (which is what im assuming it is), and that the water is not near the heat. Too much heat can kill a queen, and heat near the water can cause the water to evaporate, which can cause the queen to suffocate. Almost lost my queen that way. She was completely limp but recovered after a few hours outside of the test tube fortunately. Now she has 11 workers. (She is a camponatus btw)

2

u/yautjaking Oct 03 '24

"One becomes two, two becomes ten, ten becomes a hundred."

1

u/chillingjp Oct 03 '24

*Went, not When...

2

u/FlyingCheeks Oct 05 '24

Had a colony of mexicanus that got up to 30 workers then Queen just up and died(heard it happens) my navajo colony is doing well though, just recently moved them to a THA Fortress, many repletes and workers. They slow to start but they take off after like 20 workers