insects and Coffee

Friday a week ago (05-16-2008), I noticed that the Carpenter Ants were swarming. New Queens were out flying looking to start new Colonies.

I have been looking to start a “Ant Farm” from a queen for years, and now here they were, and I was here walking from one work meeting to the next with out any thing to capture and store one until I got her home to the Gel Box I had waiting for just one of these ants.

Alas, to keep it short… once again at work (05-22-2008), I hear a shriek from the LAB, followed by “elvin will know what to do.” Yes! It was in fact a wing-less Queen crawling about. I shook her from the LAB tamping Scale, and put her in a Transportation tube with NASA Ant Gel.

Here she is with her first egg >>>

The “Ant Farm” that I have her in is quite small… I will have to (like to) build a larger one. One which Carpenter Ants will be more at home in, one with wood and such things to dig about in.

Updates:

05-28-2008: She now has eight eggs that she is brooding. If in fact it was a parasitic mite that was on her, it now seems to be gone.

05-31-2008: As of today she has ten eggs. Not seeing much change in the first eggs laid… maybe a little darker, no… it is clearing on the ends, definite clear liquid in the tips of the older eggs).

06-10-2008: Two new eggs today; total of twelve. (possibly thirteen: There is one eggs in the rubble pile that she discarded a week ago, making it nine eggs for a day and then back to ten that she was brooding… bottom line— twelve that she is brooding as of today).

06-12-2008: Fourteen eggs total now.

06-27-2008:  Seems she is down to eleven eggs now… not sure why she would eat them, I have heard that they will eat there eggs.  Maybe they were not developing like she wanted?  Any thoughts out there from the Entomologists or any other Ant Nerds?

Tags: Ant Farm, Carpenter Ant, NASA Space Gel, Queen, Reproductives

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 25th, 2008 at 6:47 pm and is filed under entomology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.