The Original Gay Porn Community - Free Gay Movies and Photos, Gay Porn Site Reviews and Adult Gay Forums

  • Welcome To Just Us Boys - The World's Largest Gay Message Board Community

    In order to comply with recent US Supreme Court rulings regarding adult content, we will be making changes in the future to require that you log into your account to view adult content on the site.
    If you do not have an account, please register.
    REGISTER HERE - 100% FREE / We Will Never Sell Your Info

    To register, turn off your VPN; you can re-enable the VPN after registration. You must maintain an active email address on your account: disposable email addresses cannot be used to register.

  • Hi Guest - Did you know?
    Hot Topics is a Safe for Work (SFW) forum.

I finally captured a live mated queen!

All experienced ant keepers advice that you leave them alone during this time. So, I got her wrapped up in my old clothes in a drawer to dampen vibrations and stuff. She now has 6 eggs that I can see. These will be her original worker ants called nanitics. They will forage for food for her so she can have the next batch of eggs. They will help her keep the eggs clean and raise the next batch of worker ants.

With this species of ant, they're suppose to have 5-10 nanitics. 6 falls exactly into this range so hopefully we are on the right track to having a healthy colony.
 
This is going to turn highly incestuous, isn't it? Is this a bible study/Sunday school project?
 
Kahaih said:
This is going to turn highly incestuous, isn't it? Is this a bible study/Sunday school project?
Click to expand...
Um, no. She mated before I captured her. She has enough sperm stores in her body to last her lifetime... of 30 years. Millions of babies.
 
Where are they going to get their food from?
 
Dominus, the ant God! [joke]

It is good to hear this is going according to plan.
 
purina said:
Where are they going to get their food from?
Click to expand...
The first 2 months, the queen will feed the initial workers (called nanitics) with nutrients she got from breaking down her body muscles. The reason is once the nanitics mature, they will do everything for her so for the rest of her 30 years on Earth she will not need her muscles. Right now, I cannot do anything but leave her alone to care for the half dozen eggs she has. Those eggs will result in larvae which will eventually turn into nanitics.

Once we get closer to the 2 months mark, I will start keeping my eyes out for signs that the colony is ready for the next stage, which is to eat for the first time. Then I will start giving them food so they can start making more worker ants. Once their numbers reach about 10-20, I will move them to a bigger home.

In the mean time, the glass tube they are in now will be their home for the next 2-3 months.

It will start to get crowded in there. It will seem cruel, but that's what ants prefer. They prefer very close quarters like that.

Some ant colonies have been known to refuse to move out of their test tube home even after they have hundreds of individuals in the colony. There are videos on youtube of ant colonies having hundrds of individuals crowded inside a test tube refusing to move out into palaces that the ant keepers have prepared for them.

Anyway, I'll try to get pictures today of the queen taking care of her initial half dozen eggs. It's a beautiful sight. For the next 2 months, she will be taking care of these eggs and the resulting ants off purely of her own body tissues.
 
The picture looks like the ends of the tube are stuffed with cotton. How do they breathe?
 
cityboy-stl said:
The picture looks like the ends of the tube are stuffed with cotton. How do they breathe?
Click to expand...
This setup is the standard setup for all ant keepers. It is a test tube. About half of the test tube is filled up with water and the water is held in place by cotton ball. This reservoir will give the ants enough water to last them a while. My tube is open on both ends so I can always give them more water if necessary. The other end is just cotton and then open air. Enough air is exchanged thru the cotton for them.

The open end will allow me to give them food in due time.
 
HoodedRat said:
30 years! That's amazing. I had no idea that ant queens lived that long.

How long do you plan on keeping her?
Click to expand...
Don't know. But since she is from here, there is nothing wrong with releasing her and her colony around here.
 
Update on this.

We ended up capturing 4 queens total. We put them in their test tube setup. Put them in the dark. And within a day they started laying eggs. So now we got 4 egg laying queens. 4 is plenty, so we have stopped trying to capture more.

With 4, we will try different setups.

Why no pics of the additional ones, they look like the original pics I posted. No reason to take more pics. Also, we need to leave them alone for a month for them to do their thing. Every time we disturb them, we run the risk of them eating all the eggs so they could start over elsewhere.
 
I feel quite invested in this ant-based saga.

I'm looking forward to seeing a full colony living in their habitat and going about their little formicidaeic lives and getting up to all kinds of antics.

:D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top