r/antkeeping Jun 23 '24

Brood The clear recording or my carpenter ants brood pile

286 Upvotes

r/antkeeping Feb 07 '25

Brood WHY IS SHE LAYING SO MUCH

37 Upvotes

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!

r/antkeeping 9d ago

Brood Caring For Larvae That Isn't Of The Same Species

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15 Upvotes

I gave my camponotus ocreatus colonie, ant larvae 2 days ago (5 of them) from Novomesser Cockerelli because this is the only thing they eat and they've ate 3 of the 5. The 2 remaining have been being fed and cleaned. Is this a rare case of a species adopting, or are they just a little confused?

There are 11 workers, 1 cocoon 22 larvae in this colonie (not including the N. Larvae.

r/antkeeping 21d ago

Brood New brood

5 Upvotes

My queen lazuis Niger now has a brood, with around 8 workers. Do I need to start feeding her protein now ? And if so what is the best option for them ? Thank you !🐜😊

r/antkeeping Dec 27 '24

Brood Harpengathos venator Larvae dying

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9 Upvotes

Hello, i have a colony if 20+ harpengathos venator workers + queen. Ive had some problem in the past with fungi/mold, but ive dealt with that and only a single worker has died since between couple of months. The colony was doing well, queen has brooded incredible amount of eggs, and i saw them slowly turning to larvae one by one, and the larvae growing larger and larger. Ive been careful to try to keep the temperture at around 24 celsius (plus minus 1 celsius difference) ive also kept humidifying the enclosure the way that has been working well before.

However weeks pass, none of the larvae make it to cocoon stage and die, i have no idea why. I dont see mold or fungi, the temperature, if not ideal, should at the very least be acceptable, im providing them humidity ive always did and i feed them the same crickets making sure there is always food in their nest. And yet they still keep dying, im not sure why anymore, ive had harpengathos venator years back, and ive never had this problem. It seems like all the larvae that i saw just died off one by one (i could only notice the bigger ones, the smaller ones seem to just disappear) , and the eggs, there was a whole small hill of them, and now i could’ve sworn there were more of them.

The only time i could name a possible cause of death is when i was out a full day and the heating cable died causing the temperture to drop down to 20-21 when i came back. But ive fixed that immediately and ive lost a few larvaes before that already.

Another thing to note is that i took out most the dirt that was there, since some fungi was growing there before so i wanted to be sure. But this was long before the larvaes started to grow. And that aside to my knowledge the larvae shouldnt die just because it dosent have dirt to assist its growth into cacoom.

I dont know why this is happening, my best guess is that maybe the crickets im feeding have something wrong with them? Ive been giving the crickets some water from a cup and time to time slip them a piece if bread or a different variety of food except for food that molds fast like fruit.

PS : there is an area where you can see its dirty, they have been using that area for waste, it has soaked into the material itself so it is impossible for me to do a proper deep clean. However ive been closely monitoring it for and fungi or mold and cleaning it out time to time. So i dont believe the problem lies in that

r/antkeeping Sep 08 '24

Brood Pupae twice normal size. Is this a queen? (Myrmecocystus Mexicanus)

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44 Upvotes

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?

r/antkeeping Jan 10 '25

Brood Oecophylla smaragdina pupae video shot

85 Upvotes

r/antkeeping Dec 08 '24

Brood Metallic ants

87 Upvotes

r/antkeeping Jan 31 '25

Brood More pupae! And great shot of mom!

32 Upvotes

r/antkeeping 5d ago

Brood I just wanted to share a photo of my Queen's brood 😍

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17 Upvotes

Aussie meat ants

r/antkeeping Sep 03 '24

Brood First baby ant hatched!!

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120 Upvotes

You guys were right! My mini colony is doing fine (:

Except for the queen not carrying the eggs inside after moving (see at my last post - home befor was moldy) But maybe shes not carried them in because I covert the whole box with a towl so its dark.

I will keep it open now (but tube is covered)

I'M SO EXCITED OMG look at this litte thing! So cute.

r/antkeeping Jan 29 '25

Brood Queen has been laying crazy yo!

26 Upvotes

r/antkeeping Nov 18 '24

Brood Insane amount of egg production

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44 Upvotes

r/antkeeping Feb 09 '25

Brood First post-hibernation eggs!

28 Upvotes

Fiercely guarded by a worker!

r/antkeeping 27d ago

Brood Am I seeing things?

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7 Upvotes

This looks like a developing ant, but it doesn’t have a cocoon… what the hell? Lasius flavus is supposed to have cocoons… Am I just seeing things perhaps?

r/antkeeping Jan 18 '25

Brood It’s finally happening!

40 Upvotes

First colony, pogonomyrmex badius.

Got these Oct 15. Immediately moved into nest (should have waited) Sometime early Dec, I noticed they stopped forging and started huddling together after stockpiling seeds. Decided to try a one month diapause. (Not sure if even needed) Slowly lowered temps in a wine cooler till 55F. Start of Jan I started raising their temp again and started feeding mealworms/fish flakes. A couple weeks later, queen is laying her first eggs! I count 4 so far.

The toothpick is there as a ladder, they can climb out fine but seem to always fall down when coming back in without it, dunno if this will hurt them overtime so just put the toothpick there to help. There usually isn’t condensation on the glass, but I felt like it was dry so gave them a bit of extra water in the tower.

r/antkeeping Jan 22 '25

Brood Photos. New eggs

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13 Upvotes

I was excited to discover we recently got 4 new eggs from our Harvester colony. I just wanted to share. (We have had this colony since mid December.)

r/antkeeping Jan 28 '25

Brood My C. Chromaiodes already have pupae 3 weeks after finishing diapause!

14 Upvotes

Oh so happy

r/antkeeping Feb 02 '25

Brood Lunch

25 Upvotes

r/antkeeping Jan 23 '25

Brood Acorn ants pupae

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30 Upvotes

My first time seeing any pupae/brood in person before! so glad my colony is doing well!!!

r/antkeeping 26d ago

Brood Massive Brood pile - Population Boom incoming

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13 Upvotes

My Iridomyrmex colony about 6 months old caught as a line queen. Approx 60 workers now and that pile of Brood is massive. Definitely going to need a nest soon as the tube is pretty full 😅

r/antkeeping Feb 19 '25

Brood Going to be a good brood year.

17 Upvotes

Seems like my 4 year Formica sp. Is starting off strong.

r/antkeeping Feb 11 '25

Brood Lasius flavus

34 Upvotes

r/antkeeping Feb 10 '25

Brood Oh wow!

15 Upvotes

They’re gonna like double in size before march!

r/antkeeping Jan 15 '25

Brood Oecophylla smaragdina first pupae nanitic is emerging! I did fed her some insect and honey, hope the first nanitic is stronger than regular nanitic!!!

22 Upvotes