Beautiful festinatus (fragilis)

Yesterday I received a queen of Camponotus festinatus (also known as Camponotus fragilis) from a friend. I wanted one of these very much, they are really beautiful. My queen is no exception to this rule:

Isn't she lovely?

Small leaf cutters

My small leaf cutter queens have arrived.

Those three I will send to friends. They all have a good sized ball of fungus growing already. This is the one I will keep for myself:

I believe them to be Acromyrmex cf. octospinosus.

Fertile Formica

The Formica fusca triad are doing fine. The queens constantly groom each other and have laid quite a big pile of eggs:

I hope their relationship is a lasting one :)

Ready for a new home

My Camponotus rufipes has layed some eggs, and I think it is time to put her in a bigger place. I say this because  right now she is between two pieces of cardboard paper inside a small pot, and the cotton pieces in the pot have started to develop mold because I am not able to clean them properly (she is overly aggressive and very easily stressed, so I have avoided moving her so far).

New nest idea

I recently came up with an idea for a mixed sand/loam and plaster nest. I put a colony of Pachycondyla striata in it to "test". The result looks quite good.

I first created a bit of plaster on one side of the shoe box, as so:

Then I put sand in and a little bit of loam on top (they can't dig in the sand, but can dig in the loam, and I did not want them digging but using the bit of plaster as nest instead). They are using one of the far side corners as rubbish dump:

On the bit of plaster I excavated a side chamber and also some underground chambers. As soon as I put the ants in, they proceeded to move the brood inside the plaster almost straight away. You can see the side here:

I made a mistake, however. I glued the top with silicon but I did not glue the bottom with anything. So the plaster lifted a little bit when I picked up the nest for the first time, and this created some space at the side and underneath. Sand went in and kind of flooded the underground chambers, and although the ants took the sand out, it is impossible to see what is going on underneath (and also there is an ugly space between the plaster and back wall. Something I will have to remedy somehow.

Eggs :)

My Camponotus rufipes queen has finally layed eggs. They cannot be seen from these pictures, but she has a small clump of eggs with her. I am thinking about putting her in a setup with some wood. I will have to think about it.

Meanwhile, she is between two small slices of cardboard paper to mimic wood. It seems she is ok there, she chewed a bit of cardboard to make a small entrance hole and also to shape some "furniture" :D

The Formica triad

I have decided to put three Formica queens together. They seem to be ok in their new home, although they are not really feeding - just drinking water from the plaster walls.

Many eggs!

The Pachycondyla queens I collected three days ago have layed many eggs. This is one of them:

This big girl is carrying a bundle of 5. She seems to be a caring mother ;)

New home

This morning I put two of the four Formica fusca queens in their new home. I opened the hoses they were in on one end and left them. So far they have chosen not to come out yet, let's see if they will be out by the time I get back home. Here is their setup:

I hope they can become co-rulers and the colony will thrive.

The Formica are here

A friend from Germany sent me 4 Formica fusca queens. They arrived yesterday, and are alive and well.

They are lovely and are pretty fast moving. Yesterday I fed them some honey water. As soon as I put the honey in, they "honed in". :)

10 mm Camponotus

I found a 10mm queen which I believe to be Camponotus, but I don't know the species yet.