My ant keeping hobby.

[Avicularia Kael]

Like all of you, I really like keeping tarantulas, but I also keep ants. I don’t mean the ants that you buy off of the internet to put in ant farms and watch them die after a few weeks, I mean professional ant keeping. This is when you actually find and raise a queen ant.

I currently have two queens, though I had more in the last couple years who died due to my inexperience. I currently have a claustral queen and a semi claustral queen. Claustral queen ants don’t need any food until they get their nanitics, or first workers. My claustral queen is Camponotus novaeboracensis. She currently has a large batch of eggs.

Semi claustral queens on the other hand, need food and are generally much harder to raise. My current semi claustral queen is a Ponera pennsylvanica. This is a very hard to find and cryptic species. She is also really small, only about 4-6mm. On the other hand, my C. novaeboracensis queen is more like 15-20mm. However, semi claustral queens aren’t always really small, that only depends on the species. I have no clue if she has brood (eggs, larvae, pupae).

 

[Reptisect]

Like all of you, I really like keeping tarantulas, but I also keep ants. I don’t mean the ants that you buy off of the internet to put in ant farms and watch them die after a few weeks, I mean professional ant keeping. This is when you actually find and raise a queen ant.

I currently have two queens, though I had more in the last couple years who died due to my inexperience. I currently have a claustral queen and a semi claustral queen. Claustral queen ants don’t need any food until they get their nanitics, or first workers. My claustral queen is Camponotus novaeboracensis. She currently has a large batch of eggs.

Semi claustral queens on the other hand, need food and are generally much harder to raise. My current semi claustral queen is a Ponera pennsylvanica. This is a very hard to find and cryptic species. She is also really small, only about 4-6mm. On the other hand, my C. novaeboracensis queen is more like 15-20mm. However, semi claustral queens aren’t always really small, that only depends on the species. I have no clue if she has brood (eggs, larvae, pupae).

I use to keep ants and boy was it great! last ant I kept was a odontamacus sp trap-jaw. I dont keep ants anymore, not enough space. Ants rock, period!

 

[Avicularia Kael]

Cool! We don’t have crazy species like that here, but we do have some cool ones, like Stigmatomma pallipes (Dracula ants).

 

[Reptisect]

Cool! We don’t have crazy species like that here, but we do have some cool ones, like Stigmatomma pallipes (Dracula ants).

Same here. they seem to be very common here

 

[Avicularia Kael]

On Saturday I believe, I collected a Formica sp. colony. They are either F. subaenescens or glacialis. I collected 12 workers and 1 queen, though 4 workers died. The 8 remaining workers are doing excellently. I feed them honey water and crickets, and the queen has laid a ton of eggs.

Pictures:

The egg pile is now twice as big as this, but it looked like this before:

 

[Avicularia Kael]

The Formica has been ID’d as F. glacialis. They now have some small larvae.
The Ponera pennsylvanica queen has 3 eggs.
The Camponotus novaeboracensis is dead.

 

[Avicularia Kael]

I was on vacation for 10 days and the Formica are now down to 3 workers, but they have some mid-sized larvae so hopefully they bounce back.
Ponera queen is still going strong with 3 eggs.

 

[thebookman10]

Amazing! I currently have 13 Lasius Niger Queens I collected from a local nuptial flight. Some have laid eggs, and 1 was infertile and died. I am hoping to eventually sell or trade them off, so PM me if you are interested in a really easy beginner species which is native to the UK, and is very easy to take care of.

 

[Avicularia Kael]

Oh, I am in the U.S. so that would be illegal for me, but there is an alternate be species here called Lasius neoniger and it is only different from L. niger genetically and by where it lives.

Might as well update this:
The Formica have only one pupae, so the other larva must have been fed to it.
Ponera is doing fine. I think she still only has eggs. They take a while to develop compared to other species.
I collected a Temnothorax longispinosus colony that was living in a twig. This is a tiny species that lives in twigs, acorns, and stuff like that. They probably have about 20 workers, lots of brood, and 1 queen. They are quite active too.
My neighbor has a Temnothorax cf. curvispinosus colony. ( I would have to see the queen for a proper ID)

 

[Avicularia Kael]

Update:
The Formica have sadly passed away.
I had caught a Tetramorium immigrans queen (these are commonly known as pavement ants) almost a month ago, and she got her nanitics (first workers) this week. Yay!
I found some Ponera workers and I introduced them to the queen and she freaked out. Unfortunately I found what I believe to be her body yesterday. I’m guessing that she died of stress as this species will merge colonies and are normally highly polygynous.
The Temnothorax have a mold situation but I believe they are doing okay, although they have been inactive lately.

 

[Avicularia Kael]

Never mind what I said about Ponera being hard to find in my first post. They are super common, but are extremely small.

 

[thebookman10]

I found some Ponera workers and I introduced them to the queen and she freaked out. Unfortunately I found what I believe to be her body yesterday. I’m guessing that she died of stress as this species will merge colonies and are normally highly polygynous.

Perhaps it was a different species of Ponera? I know that Ponera workers are very hard to id the different species from.

 

[Avicularia Kael]

Perhaps it was a different species of Ponera? I know that Ponera workers are very hard to id the different species from.

We only have P. pennsylvanica here in Michigan. Sorry should have been clear on that in the post.

 

[Avicularia Kael]

I might try to look for Crematogaster queens today because last night my dock was covered in workers and males.

 

[Avicularia Kael]

So, because I didn't bring my ants back and forth from my lake house, all have died, except for my Temnothorax colony's queen, my Aphaenogaster queen. I also caught 4 Crematogaster queens last night.

 

[Avicularia Kael]

Somehow, my trio of Crematogaster escaped, and the single queen died.

 

[Avicularia Kael]

The Aphaenogaster queen also died.

 

[MBullock]

I keep ants too! I have a Camponotus absquatulator colony that's been going strong for a few years, got a few nice majors too

 

[Avicularia Kael]

I keep ants too! I have a Camponotus absquatulator colony that's been going strong for a few years, got a few nice majors too

Nice! Festinatus group Camponotus are pretty cool.