#antkeeper

[futurebird]

she

Her long legs

her dark eyes

her golden hair.

[foxtheantkeeper]

Looks pretty good for my first print in half a year. Still need to tweak the nozzle height and bed leveling but otherwise I'm pretty ok with this. Now I just need to slap some plexiglass on the top of it and make a proper lid to keep it dark inside.

[futurebird]

Colony updates!

I saw the biggest ant in my colonies, the huge queen of my Camponotus pennsylvanicus is alive and laying eggs.

She is four years old.

Meanwhile the cone ants (Dorymyrmex) are raising queen alates! look how huge they are.

And the ruby minis (Camponotus discolor) have tons of eggs!

[futurebird]

1 800-dial-an-ant

I wonder how much my camponotus colony weighs? I'd estimate about 8 to 10g total. (It will be hard to get them all on the scale at the same time. But maybe I can think of another way to weigh them.)

This reminds me! I've been wanting to get a "pick up" microphone to tape to their nest so I can listen to them.

I also had the idea of making a number people could call to listen to the colony...

*high pitched voice*

"Please listen to all of the following menu options as our options have changed! Press 1 for the egg chamber, 2 for sugar storage, 3 for dead insect pick up, 4 for the queen's receptionist, if you know the 34 digit ID code for a particular ant you can dial it now."

[futurebird]

Ant Chess Set:

Based on Camponotus

king - Alate Male queen - De-Alate Queen (physogastric and extra large) rooks - Alate Queens (Petite, for queens) bishops - Median (Holding pupae in her jaws) knights - Majors (huge heads) pawns - Workers

How does this not already exist??? It's so obvious. One black side, one dar reddish brown. Wooden board with natural bark edge.

[futurebird]

hard to find ant stickers that are:

1. Cute

2. Worker ants aren't all boys for no reason

3. doing vaguely ant-like stuff

But not impossible. These are perfect! (Granted baby ants aren't little ants, they are larva... but that might be asking too much.)

Make larvae look cute? Just make them look like they are swaddled in little white blankets...

[foxtheantkeeper]

Moved the Pheidole colony in to a clean test tube. Their old one had a bit of a mold problem so they needed to move.

They're also not really eating anything any more. I've tried cricket leg, oats, seeds, fruit, and a couple other things and they just don't seem to like any of it. Anyone know of better foods for them?

[foxtheantkeeper]

My Camponotus test tube has become quite packed! The ants are super big and very active, and I think in the coming week I'm going to try to build them a proper terrarium to move in to!

That queen is just so huge though. It's a delight watching these gals move about and share food. They're actually putting a lot of effort in to tunneling through the cotton ball at the end. I have swapped it out once already, but as you can see they're already about a third the way through the new one.