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Transport is stressful to colonies but it is only for a few days. It is a lot more stressful when the colonies are kept under the incorrect environmental conditions whether it is the wrong humidity, lack of fresh air or incorrect temperature!
The colonies were doing so well in Thailand that they had started to raise a brood of alates which is a sure sign they like the conditions – it was these alate larvae that were aborted as they need a stable temperature, constant care and an uninterrupted food supply. All my colonies have a good amount of brood sent with them as any of my customers would tell you – yours also had a large amount of brood when it was sent to you!
As for the mites suddenly materializing during transport this may explain why so many hobbyists have mite infections – it’s nothing that they have done its just that the mites have the ability to mysteriously materialize from nowhere.
What you are trying to say is that the ants had dormant mite eggs on them all the time I cared for the colonies while they were in Thailand and during the several weeks I had them in the UK, then they suddenly decided to hatch out about four weeks after you had them – Come on its just nonsense!
The main thing is my colony is still alive, honestly the end of the matter for me now.
Forums should be places where members can learn about their hobbies not a place to vent ones disappointment against someone who they think has wronged them.
What has been learnt: Always check the health of the colony after you receive it and notify the vendor immediately if anything is wrong. If you can not check the condition immediately for whatever reason tell the vendor and he would normally allow you an extra few days to check them over.
Don’t expect a vendor to be over sympathetic when you contact him a month or two later after receiving the colony telling him they weren’t healthy!
The ongoing blog regards the use of the hypoaspis predators is no doubt interesting to forum members and will be a useful reference for hobbyists with similar problems in the future.
The next set of workers are close to hatching, most of the pupaes are still white but some are darkening and so over night I think more will start to darken. Over the last couple days there have also been more soldiers pupating and alot more of the larvaes are darkening, turning into pupaes. I think the number of parasites will reduce again over the next month or two, the Hypoaspis are still alive in the setup so they must be living off of something.
Over the last few days alot of larvaes have started pupating into soldiers and over the last 24 hours two majors have started to pupate with another major larvae looking close to turning into a pupae soon. Some of the worker pupaes have now hatched and more look close to hatching.
I haven't updated this in a while but for anyone still following I have an update. During the last few weeks alot of new workers have been hatching out, workers were hatching every day but not as many have been hatching in the last week. I've also got atleast five new majors now with more major pupaes hatching very soon, also alot of smaller soldiers have been hatching out and there are now more than there were around a month ago. The colony has significantly grown in the last few weeks. The mites have almost been killed off aswell, the queen still has some on her but they're no doubt dying off and I cannot see any on the workers or soldiers now.
Some pictures of the nest and brood;
http://i1127.photobucket.com/albums/l623/Kentuckyfrogler101/IMGP0429.jpg
http://i1127.photobucket.com/albums/l623/Kentuckyfrogler101/IMGP0428.jpg
http://i1127.photobucket.com/albums/l623/Kentuckyfrogler101/IMGP0427.jpg
Thanks for reading.
I'm happy to hear that the mites are dying off. :)
Thanks Vasile, here's a pic of one of the newly hatched majors aswell, the biggest one I've seen yet, it's head is in the middle of the pic, couldn't get the rest of it in the pic but it's around 2cm.
http://i1127.photobucket.com/albums/l623/Kentuckyfrogler101/IMGP0447.jpg
Great to see them picking up now mate , Great job =D>
I hope we still on for drone , queen swopping when the time comes :P :grin:
Regards
Adam :mrgreen:
Thanks Adam, I'm still up for that! Not sure how much longer it would take to get new queens and males but it seems my colony will grow bigger faster with all the majors now storing all the food.