ANTSTORE World of Ants

[anquietas]

i have found a queen last night and do not know the species could some one help i have enclosed the best pic i could get of her she is at least 2cm long what is she

[SteveUK28]

Obviously a camponotus, not vagus, ligniperda or substitutus. so other than that.. ive no idea sorry

[Sphecomyrmex]

How long is she?

I think it's Camponotus pennsylvanicus, but also probably other Camponotus species...

[anquietas]

i wana say camponotus is latin / scientific for carpenter then lol i will check all those o and will she nest in dirt? if not what is the best nest for her

p.s. i am prety sure she is Camponotus pennsylvanicus because the other 2 had some red on them and she is completly black

[tail__]

Most Camponotus can nest in dirt if they haven't any choice, but they would choose dead wood if possible. I think the cork nest would be the most natural for them, though they also do well in ytong or gypsum nests.

[anquietas]

ok ty very much now how long will it take for her to start laying eggs (shes in light becuase i wish her to get used to it and so when i put her in a dirt nest she will not block the tunnles) and how long before the eggs become micro workers aka starting workers and is she a good ant for begeners? o and do i feed her or not?

[miszt]

Camponotus tend to make their nests initially in wood, but as the colony matures it spreads into the ground, they usually use a tree stump as a base for a colony and turn it into a honey comb structure, which they can put brood in during the summer to develop faster

depending on the species it culd be 2 months or longer, most european Camp are easy to look after

[anquietas]

thank you so it will take 2 months or longer for her to start to lay eggs or 2 months or longer for the eggs to become micro workers? o and are they poly cuz i found 2 more plz say yes

[kashmir79]

camponotouses are rarely Poly. dont put the queens together because once they lay eggs, they will fight to the death.

[anquietas]

ok ty my first one has died and i cant figure out y is it because she chewed up her cotton balls or what? at least i have another one o and now another one has droped dead she was fine not even 2 min ago and now she is only twitching that makes 3/4 dead they are in the same elclosers my other queens were in and they are the only 3 i have lost

[kashmir79]

what are you keeping them in

[anquietas]

the one you see in the pic i keeped her in a test tube and the other 2 in rx bottles (both used for other queens untill i had better enclosers for them) pending me getting 2 more test tubes

[anquietas]

i figured out what has killed my queens all 3 have worms crwaling out of there abdomen it is disgusting how would i have saved them had i known?

[tail__]

Unfortunately you can't do anything, they probably got them before you caught them, maybe even in their home nest. They are probably nematodes, common and lethal ant parasites.

[anquietas]

well i figured out that it takes 2 minutes and 30 seconds to kill them in the micro wave revenge is not as good as i had heard feel horrorible that i took the life of other creatures (have no prob with misquietos though) even if they did kill my queen now i feed my termites the same wood i found the queen in (after nukeing it for 3 min) is it safe for them or should i take it out?