Camponotus quercicola First Worker! 5/18/18

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      On March 30, I had the pleasure of going queen-ant hunting near Mt. Diablo with a friend. I managed to catch a handful of queens, all of which were of the species Camponotus quercicola. I proceeded to put them into a test tube setup, which is commonly used for keeping starting queens, with some added oak bark that we collected from the trees which we found the queens on. This bark would apparently help them settle in better, as another antkeeper couldn't get his to lay second batches of eggs until he added oak bark to their enclosures.

     Just a few days ago, I noticed that a few of the queens had gotten their first workers! As of now, 3 of my 4 queens have workers. By the way, I caught 7 queens to start with, but one was infertile (so I released her), and two I traded/gave away. The workers are quite large, around 8mm long. They are the second largest Camponotus species in CA (that I know of), the largest being the rare Camponotus ocreatus. Here are some pictures of one of the queens with it's first worker:




     As you can probably tell, these are massive ants. But surprisingly, these are supposedly quite calm. Another antkeeper actually has hand-fed them sugary liquids with no aggression, and reported that the only Camponotus species that this worked with was this species, Camponotus quercicola. This is something I might try in the near future. 

     Juging by the amount of young they have right now, I expect for each queen to have at least 10 workers by the time they go into hibernation (mid November). It is very likely that they will have more, as these queens will continue to lay eggs throughout the year.. These are my favorite carpenter ants at the moment, and I cannot wait for them to grow larger, and get some of their massive soldiers, which can be 15mm in size, and are one of the great things about keeping ants of this genus.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed and learnt something new!

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