Fire.

I have Lost all my ant colonies to a fire.

The stereo started the fires, their were two wires crimped close together that started arching, and well one thing led to another and the basement caught on fire, where my room was. Lost all my clothes, my plants, my ants camera, computer. Collectible things, just kinda sucked. But I have two new colonies going. Prenolepis imparis (2 queens), and Camponotus noveboracensis (1 queen, 3 eggs, and one worker I captured from a wild Colony). Their is another C. noveboracensis colony I want to obtain its more mature with much more workers, which will be nice to have a fairly mature colony again. This Blog will probably cover my other ant colonys Till the T. caespitum nuptial flights.

Thats all for now, Ill get pictures once I get a camera for now all I have is this horrible shot with my camera phone.
Camponotus noverboracensis

Tetramorium caespitum Colony B

Ive had this colony in the quite for a while, just kind a lurking around, well it finally got its own set up, i gave it a smaller set up till i can come up with something more simple for a small colony. which has proven difficult to make but design turned out better

This is basically the whole set up, I used a CD case Plaster and Cork. If you make the chambers to close the cork crumbles




This is basically where they have settled into.


Here you can see two fairly decent shots of the queen.






The only thing I'm worried about is the low brood Count I noticed with Tet.c.A that after the mite attack and the week in the fridge did some good in boosting the population.

I might try that. Only a month in the fridge with a day out every now and then.

Parasitic ant video

Nothing really to update, just more mites probably just gonna chill the ants till spring, and over load them with food, hopefully get reproductives!

Hear is a video you guys might find fascinating.

Feeding time

The ants are doing GREAT, they have most definitely settled in since the hibernation. They seem to be fine and I haven't noticed any mites, or any problems. Just plain old good results.

Not much really to update, hear are just some pictures of a Meal worm I gave them, First they took the Worms head in first, then the rest of the body!















That is all, I did record a video but I cant get it changed from the Windows movie maker file type into a plain Windows media file, but ill figure it out I did be for!

Ill post that later, enjoy!

Holloween Horror

I found something very horrible

My Tetramroium colony has Mites!




My mom bought a Video camera for Her Boyfriends son's wedding, for a gift and sence im video taping the whole thing... *sigh* I get to mess around with it for a week. Hear are some pictures...

Thriving

As for the first few weeks in the set up the T. caespitum are doing VERY well.




Hear you can see some of the workers Socializing



This is an over all good group picture, the one ant is lifting a good weight for its size (except for the fact that plaster isnt that heavy)



Hear you can see an OK shot of the brood and some workers




This is a bad shot of the queen, but you can make out her figure and her definate shape.

Enjoy!

Moving In

Well The ants are moved in, it didnt take them long though. I was supprised it usualy takes them a while.





Finaly you can see the size differentation between the queen's and the workers, you can see some brood.



In these photo's you can see some brood, but you wont see much until the ants move out compleatly out of the test tube.