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Post by Chicken2012 on Jul 23, 2013 14:05:48 GMT
They are here. My Formica Fusca colony arrived in the post today from AntsUK.
There was the queen but only 2 workers and very few brood. There was also a little mould in the tube, but not yet enough to worry me.
I'll post pictures later.
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Post by formica123 on Aug 13, 2013 8:24:44 GMT
Awesome! I loved Formica Fusca. But they are very fast and can easily walk over vasaline and olive oil! They can grow quite big and the queen will only lay eggs if NEVER and I mean NEVER disturbed. They like soil/sand based sandwich nests and are a big fan of honey and bluebottles. Good luck!
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Post by Chicken2012 on Aug 13, 2013 10:39:58 GMT
13.8.13 11:36
When I fed them today, I discovered that one of the workers was dead in the corner.
But the good news is that there is now 1 pupae. It is, as far as I can see, the only brood though.
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Post by Chicken2012 on Aug 13, 2013 10:41:29 GMT
Awesome! I loved Formica Fusca. But they are very fast and can easily walk over vasaline and olive oil! They can grow quite big and the queen will only lay eggs if NEVER and I mean NEVER disturbed. They like soil/sand based sandwich nests and are a big fan of honey and bluebottles. Good luck! How can I never disturb them though? I need to feed them sometimes and that means that they will be disturbed. |
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Post by formica123 on Aug 13, 2013 12:03:27 GMT
I mean like don't bang them or hardly ever shine a bright light on them.
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Post by Chicken2012 on Aug 13, 2013 12:58:39 GMT
Oh okay, so a bit of daylight whilst I feed them is okay.
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Post by formica123 on Aug 14, 2013 16:02:27 GMT
Yes.
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Post by Chicken2012 on Aug 14, 2013 16:18:40 GMT
Oh, okay thanks.
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Post by formica123 on Aug 15, 2013 11:19:00 GMT
And also they dig rapidly when gave honey.
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Post by Chicken2012 on Aug 16, 2013 9:45:25 GMT
Okay, well they haven't found the nesting box yet.
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Post by Chicken2012 on Aug 16, 2013 9:49:34 GMT
16.8.13 10:45
well the pupae hasn't eclosed yet but it seems close, also the queen has laid a batch of eggs, looks like around half a dozen or so, but it's a start.
(Sorry the updates are short, but it allows me to be able to report on them more every few days, and about a different aspect every few days.)
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Post by formica123 on Aug 16, 2013 12:54:19 GMT
How many workers are there?
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Post by Chicken2012 on Aug 16, 2013 13:07:29 GMT
1 at the moment.
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Post by formica123 on Aug 17, 2013 8:18:40 GMT
That happened to somebody I know. He had 1 worker. Now 5 weeks later he has 13!
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