#antqueen — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #antqueen, aggregated by home.social.
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My Tetramorium immigrans (pavement ant) queen has made excellent progress. Her larvae are now pupae. (you can tell because they are now ant-shaped with legs) immigrans does not spin silk cocoons as my carpenter ants do. The queen keeps them clean and safe as they develop— she is their cocoon.(look at the second photo to see the progress she has made in just one week)
#antqueen #antkeeping #tetramorium #tetramoriumimmigrans #nature #petant #ants
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Just used this tool today. I thought she only had 11 workers but no, there are 15 now!
This is an excellent tool for counting your ants. I need to convince the guy who made it to get rid of that horrible image ... it sells the tool short.
It's impossible to count ants when they are moving around. And I would have missed the one hiding under the queen.
Why are they so cute?
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Here is my new carpenter ant queen. Her colony has 11 workers and I’ve been sharing their progress since the day I found her. Her gaster is filled with nectar that her daughters have collected. They are using her like a water tank.
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She has them so well organized. #antqueen #tetramoriumimmigrans
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Ant update. The young carpenter colony has 10 workers and more on the way.
The pavement ant queen has *so many* eggs. Ma’am? That’s too many eggs. How did you make all of those without eating? #antqueen #tetramoriumimmigrans #camponotus
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Carpenter ants are “large ants” but this nanitic is so small she can only move one sand grain at a time. She is making progress with every trip. #antqueen
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She has already laid some eggs. I have a parent who wants an ant colony so maybe I’ll gift her.
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Now there are 9 workers! The little colony is 10 ants strong. They have been filling their mother up with sugar all day long. Look at how her gaster is distended.
The light for the photo made them hide under her.
I gave them some wet sand to play with. Let’s see what they make. #antqueen
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Get as mad as you want, girls. One of them is already among you!
https://sauropods.win/@futurebird/116714279389366711
#antqueen -
They have moved into the new home and sealed the door (but only after eating most of the food I offered) They choose the second most humid chamber of three options.
Last week there were four workers, now there are six! and more on the way.
You can track the growth of this colony from the day that I found this queen here: https://sauropods.win/tags/antqueen
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I've hooked the queen and her now FOUR nantics to a new outworld with a better nesting option.
Her daughters are nervously exploring the new space until they get freaked out and run back to mom.
It's amazing to watch.
#queenant #antqueen #antkeeping #ants #petant #carpenterants #camponotus #camponotusPennsylvanicus
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Her pupae have begun to hatch!
Here is a link where you can find her whole journey:
https://sauropods.win/tags/antqueen -
She is such a good mother! Five pupae now!
And still more larvae to go. She was very calm for the photos this time. #antqueen #carpenterant #antkeeping #petant
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Queen ant update!
Her brood pile is the same size as her body almost. She has five larvae in silk pupae ready to grow up to be nanitics (in about two weeks)
She’s doing great living in the fountain pen drawer. #antqueen #ants #antkeeping #camponotus #nycants
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It is unreasonable that any bug could be this cute! when I open the drawer she always carefully picks up her eggs. She’s holding the most mature larva and it’s silk cocoon in the first photo. I guess she’s ready to run and start over if needed. What an incredible mother.
If you look back through this thread you can see how far she's come!
#ants #antqueen #antkeeping #carpenterAnts #camponotus #camponotusPennsylvanicus
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Queen update!
She has two larvae ready to spin their silk cocoons, and one that has already cocooned itself and started to pupate and mature. As a treat, I soaked a grain of bee pollen in a bit of sugar water and fed it to her. She seemed delighted with it, and I hope it made up for the bright lights of the photo session. Here she is eating her treat. (Better photos of the cocoon in the next post. ) #antkeeping #petant #ants #antqueen
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Queen in a drawer. A test tube can seem like a small space for such a large, majestic insect, but this mimics what she would have built or found for herself in the wild, a narrow hollow under bark, a repurposed carpenter bee burrow, or a hole excavated with her own mandibles queen ants seal themselves in creating a space with no exit, total darkness and seclusion to maximize moisture and avoid discovery.
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Queen update! Her eggs have hatched and are now larvae. She will feed them “trophic eggs” which are special eggs that cannot hatch. This is an ant food storage hack. Young ants need protein but she cannot leave the nest to raise this first generation.
While I was bugging her with a photo today I also gave her a drink of water which she seemed to like. #antqueen
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Quick update on my new queen carpenter ant: she seems to be doing well living in her glass test tube inside of my pen drawer. I checked on her today and gave her a drop of water which she accepted and drank. Her eggs are slowly developing.
(How to keep people from taking your fancy pens.) #antqueen
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She is such a good mother. I’m still in shock that she was going to try and live under my keyboard.
When I found her she was “hiding” but like most queens she wasn’t aware of how big she is and her gaster was visible giving her away.
She is now in a luxury NYC ant condo. #antqueen
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Bonus cute photo of a queen and her minima worker. I love how the caption implies that the scientist could not separate them! 💗🐜 #ants #atta #queenant #leafcutters #antposting #antqueen
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My #Formica #subsericea queen is very skittish and if there is a loud noise or vibrations she runs out of her nest and tries to hide in the water feeder. Only she is much too large for this to work. Poor girl.
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In past springs I've never had such a large colony. They grew to their current size in the summer. Now they are doing the prep work to have a big population boom for spring. This colony is going to be HUGE. #antvideo #carpenterAnts #camponotus #ants #antsOfMastodon #antqueen