Cale's Camponotus pennsylvanicus colony

[xTNxANTMANx]

While I was feeding my ants today b4 work, I noticed that one of my Camponotus subarbatus colonies has 2 pupae as well. They will be the first new workers of the year and I believe make a total of 8 workers...maybe 9. Will have to count. I try not to keep them in the light to long so I never really have counted the exact number. I do know for sure that another one of those I have has 3 workers tho lol. And the third queen of the same sp is on her first batch. Hoping to have her first nanitics in the next month.

[Cale3459]

Well I'm not sure what happened but I had several workers die this weekend. I'm down to 4 workers with my queen. She has two pupae currently. I would like them to move into a test tube as the nest is much too large for them now and they aren't doing a good job keeping it clean. I have a little bit of mold starting on some of the bodies. I've identified a very large Camponotus colony on my property with colony openings in an area 3 feet in diameter. I've used a technique in the past to rescue queens that were going to be killed by our construction work where I put a plywood board down over the entrances and leave it for a week or two. Wait until a sunny hot day and 99% of the time the queen would be there and I could capture her and much of the brood and many workers. I don't prefer to capture established colonies and only do this when the colony is going to be destroyed if I don't but my plan with this one is to capture some brood for this colony that has had a lot of dieoff. Not enough that will hurt the wild colony but enough to hopefully save this colony.

[Cormac]

How many eggs and lava does your queen have? maybe your workers will be replenished? I hope your colony succeeds.

[Cale3459]

How many eggs and lava does your queen have? maybe your workers will be replenished? I hope your colony succeeds.

Basically full on colony collapse. I have one worker with two pupae. I managed to get her to move back into a test tube so we will see how they do in there with an attached test tube portal for food. As previously mentioned I have located a large colony of wild Camponotus that I am going to attempt to snag some brood in order to boost with. I did locate a small infestation of feral odorous house ants in the cotton under the nest. I'm not sure if this could have contributed to the colony collapse but I'm hoping that the test tube will be good for keeping this colony alive.

[xTNxANTMANx]

Looks like Tapinoma sessile... What's crazy is I actually have a colony of these little ants . At the same time, I have problems with wild ones entering my house every year. It's nice to know that I need to keep an eye out just in case something like this happens to one of my other colonies. Where I keep my ants is right by a window also but now that I know this they will definitely be moved to a more secure location.