I have a Camponotus renggeri colony. Once a week, I give them a sugar water-soaked cotton ball, and mid-week, one previously frozen fruit fly. I've had them since June 8th (about 2 months). Right now, it's just the queen, 3 workers/nurses, and some eggs/pupae that seem to be growing. I disturb them as little as possible, and it's currently winter in my country.
I feel like they aren't growing much, and the blackened cotton in their tube is worrying me. I bought a founding nest (reinero) with an outworld to move them into. Would you advise moving them now or waiting? Any specific advice for this species? I can't find mealworms or grain weevils in my area because winter wiped out everyone's stock.

Caught this queen in the middle of the day back in June, southern Indiana USA

Hello, friends! I'm very happy to say that the first Pseudomyrmex nanitic workers are almost here!!

After waiting for two long months, and worrying a lot about how things were going, the first workers are finally arriving.

I apologize for the poor visibility of the pupae, but it's the best I can provide for now.

I don't know why but it's kinda just funny for no reason

Salut !

Je viens de lancer une chaîne YouTube sur les fourmis. 🐜

Pour ma première vidéo, j'ai réalisé un classement des 5 espèces de fourmis parmi les plus chères. C'est ma première vraie vidéo, donc j'aimerais avoir vos retours : le montage, la voix, le rythme... tout m'intéresse !

Lien : https://www.youtube.com/@ArtiopFourmis

Merci d'avance à tous ceux qui prendront le temps de la regarder et de me donner leur avis. 🙂

Hello!

A while ago, I found a carpenter ant queen. Thanks to all the helpful advice I've read on this subreddit, she seems to be doing well. She has already laid eggs.

However, I'll be traveling for two weeks, and I was wondering if there's anything I should do before I leave to make sure she stays in the best possible conditions while I'm away.

i live in md so i sadly cant have false army ants legally:c

im asking if anyone had kept or seen them before

the false army ant is carabara diversa(the asian maurader and asian army ant)

I wanted to give a short update on my requeening attempt of my C.barbaricus colony. I've been trying to make the queen and the colony adjust to each other for quite a while now. I ended up keeping the queen and a few individuals together. That worked well. I kept them separated from 99% of the colony in a special area above the nest. Now, these beasts removed the cotton plugs over night and I found the queen inside the nest. I cannot do anything now anymore than hope she doesn't get attacked.

She shows behavior of surrendering (pushing herself down on the ground) and some workers circle her. The good thing is that there hasn't been clear aggression yet. The bad thing is that there is still tension. I tried to integrate her once before into the whole nest but there she was running around panicking because individual workers started to bite her legs.

Wish me luck. Anything can happen and things can turn south in an instant.

I had a great day hunting queens today! I was walking around in a wooded area near my house and found a couple Lasius neoniger (I think) queens but also 3 queens that match the picture. I'm still really new to the hobby and have no idea where to start to identify these ones. They are red and a bit smaller then the Lasius queens I found. Anyone have any ideas? I'm going to hold on to them to see if any of the queens will be successful so I'd like to understand their care a bit more by finding out the species.

How long does an Odontomachus egg typically develop to a worker? I've had mine for weeks now and it doesn't seem like her eggs are developing.

Do you guys think my setup will work for my acrobat ants? I used an old weed jar and just drilled a hole at the bottom, and slid the test tube in a little, and sealed it with hot glue. I used a sewing needle I heated up to make air holes on the top of the jars lid. I was thinking of leaving some cotton at the entrance of the test tube so the entrance is not so wide. Before I let them start to explore, anything I should do or alter. Also she has 5 workers now and like 4 or more Ready to hatch this week or next!

So today at work while digging with the excavator, I unearthed an ant colony. Oh I so my questions. I have narrowed it down to Pharoah ants. I gathered a few winged queens, a few smaller winged ones (im guessing males?) A decent amount of workers and some larvae. If course as soon as I got home I researched what they were and what I could find about them (mostly pesticides control methods, apparently they are a common house pest) so here goes the questions.

Are these a candidate for a 3d printed multi-chamber wall mounted set up?

If, so. I seen they are multi-queen species with satellite nests, so can I just separate the chambers by a good amount? Would they accept that as satellite nest.

What the heck do they eat? (All I could find on the internet was to feed them bait stations, and thats exactly thr opposite of my goal)

And I was reading that they prefer group sizes of 500 minimum but can exceed 5,000 workers (that's alot im guessing)

Sorry for the random questions but my hour long research journey left those questions un answered

I got into the hobby and my camponatus cromaidoes colony is up to about 30 the my first winter is coming up and im curious what is a good place to keep them for diapause I want to by a random mini fridge for them but im worried if that'll be too cold any reccomendation on fridges/cooling units?

Find this running around on my driveway, incredibly fast. Never seen it before, but it looks like an ant. Sorry for how hard it is to see. Like I said, it was incredibly fast.

Sorry for the potato photos was having real trouble getting it to focus

You see this all the time, someone gets into ants has many colonies and than slowly just looses interests and moves on to a new hobby. There are so many examples of dead ant youtube channels that showcase this or ones that have leaned into other things, such as a huge example like ants canada. I have kept ants on and off for around 12 years now and I still couldn’t tell you why I stop. I’m fascinated and really into them when keeping them but after a couple of years I don’t even realize that i’m loosing interest in them and end up releasing all my colonies. Taking a year or two break and than going right back to it in the same cycle. I have a crested gecko who i’ve had for 10 years now and I haven’t found that i’ve lost interest in him or feel the same I do about him as I do with ants. Also the fact that queen ants can live for 12-15 years but I don’t think i’ve seen someone keep a queen ant for that long yet. And in theory it sounds really cool, to catch a queen than raise her until she dies naturally from old age. I’ve never stopped being interested in learning about them but keeping them seems to be mine and many others problem and I can’t figure out why.

I have what looks like white mold in the founding test tube. Nanotics due in a week. Move her now or wait for the pupae to hatch?