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Queen Boudica's Reign
Camponotus ligniperdus
I'm a beginner so any advice along the way would be apreciated. My colony consist's of 1x Queen and 3x workers, there were 5 workers but 3 were dead on arival. Its now day 2 in their new habitat, both days mainly consisted of the workers making Boudica comfy and removing the dead. There seems to be one slightly larger worker who is the pioneer, the other 2 have not ventured past the end of their tube. This has left the feeding to our pioneer who has been tirelessly stuffing himself with honey and feeding the rest of the colony (has anyone else seen this?) Today they havent left the nest as of yet, i have placed some insects for them on the food altar :P for protein but they dont seemm too fussed at the moment. The temperature has been around 25 degrees c, so perfect for these guys i believe luckily!
Edit Uta
Herself* (Queen and workers are all female). Yeah it's normal for only a few to feed (or one when you have so few workers) and then return and feed the others.
Its day 6 and they seemed to have settled. I havent seen the pioneer out for a while but i guess it only takes 5 mins to stock up on honey so i could easily have missed it. They still havent taken ay insects, has anyone got any alternative suggestions for to get some protein to this young colony?
The temperature has dropped slightly here in the uk so as I have no heat source I decided to use just a bare lamp, behind this I've put a piece of card which I covered in foil to reflect some heat back in. Within 5 mins the pioneer was out and about, amazing what a few degrees difference makes! As they have not taken any insects that I left them I decided to find something smaller so 2 green fly went in alive. One crawled into the test tube with queen boudica, needless to say it didn't last long! Is anyone aware if they are a source of protein? The second, fatter one is walking around unwittingly, muwahahaha :p
Day 8
Boudica has been laying some more egg's, im guessing that this is due to the higher, more constant heat source. They seem to be most active around 25-27 C. The pioneer seems to be exploring alot more also. I froze a spider and placed it in yesterday, they havent touched it but i think it may be a bit to big, I also gave them green fly the other day so im guessing they still may be full, either way its best that they know its there. Does anyone know any good insects in the UK (north) that are a top source of protein?
day 14
I spotted some black substance inside the test tube on the cotton, after reading some post's i couldnt be 100% it wasnt mould so i decided to take action! I wanted to get the queen out and into the premade hole i started for the ants, to do this i placed my light close to the test tube to heat it up, this was after watching some ants canada vids on youtube. Needless to say after ten minutes the queen and workers had made their way to the end of the test tube, then after around 15 minutes the queen made a dash forward and straight into my premade hole! Perfection! After a session of searching it seems the other ants have decided that the hole will be a good place for a nest and have started digging, the eggs are just next to the opening for now.
I hope she is enjoying her new home?
she is enjoying her new home, i think ive had some trouble regarding moisture etc so any advice in that area would be great. I'll upload some more pics when things get a bit more interesting :p
I have sorted the moisture and now the ants have started digging! They seem much happier, i applied water across the whole top, enough to reach the bottom. :D
Hi, I like your nest and would like to see some more photos of it. ;) I'm starting a Camponotus l igniperdus colony myself. Check it out in my thread.
Good luck :)
[Edit: Mod]