Post from American forum by Dspdrew

[Formica123]

All credits to Dspdrew, here is original copy: http://antfarm.yuku.com/reply/146220/Ds ... nAuRK_fWh8

Update 8-12-2014

The two queens with fungus growing on their pellets still had not added any substrate to them, but the fungus did look a little more healthy that day. I moved both of them into foraging containers and replaced the cotton in their test tubes with a rubber stopper with a notch cut out of the side. I sterilized some dirt from out in the desert, sprinkled it about 1/4 inch deep in the bottom of the containers, and wet it all down. I then sterilized some leaf litter from the desert, crushed it up into very small pieces, added some bits of oatmeal, and sprinkled that all around in the containers also
http://www.formiculture.com/uploads/gal ... _19458.jpg
Later last night, a few hours after setting up the foraging containers for the queens, I noticed one of them added a tiny bit of something to her fungus, and both fungus "gardens" had more white fuzz.
When I got home from work today, I found the new queen had placed all the pieces of sand the previous queen dragged into the tube all around the rubber stopper. Her fungus seemed to have doubled in size, 'till I noticed there were actually two fungus pellets in there now. I think this queen actually waited until now to spit her pellet out... I'm not sure why though. As for the other queen, her fungus with the added substrate is growing well and much larger than it started out as.

Here is the larger piece of fungus with something added to it. The queen just got done licking it all down, so it doesn't have as much fresh white fuzz as it did before I disturbed her; I hope that's not a bad thing.

Before I left for work today, the fungus still looked about the same as it did the night before, just a little more fuzzy. Just as I was checking out the larger fungus "garden" under my microscope, the queen started grabbing on it again like she always does, but this time I actually saw her curl her gaster under and squirt yellow secretions all over the fungus. Later in the day when I got home from work, I noticed this queen's fungus had doubled in size. The smaller one was still the same size, but a lot fuzzier and healthy looking.

[Formica123]

Update 8-19-2014

The larger fungus garden has been growing larger every day. I can see the queen puts little specks of leaves or whatever she has chosen about the size of her eggs onto the fungus, and it then grows all over them soon after.
http://www.formiculture.com/uploads/gal ... 400481.jpg

The queen with the smaller fungus garden doesn't have anything now. I'm not sure where it went, but I took her out and put another queen in there. I also took a small piece of the larger fungus garden and gave it to her. Right away she took interest in it, and tripled it in size in just a couple days. I actually saw her squirting anal fluid onto the substrate and fungus, so I was pretty sure she was properly taking care of it. She also has all of her eggs piled right there with the fungus now. This morning I noticed a fresh piece of substrate added to the fungus that of course is all covered in the white fuzz now. It looked like it was a small piece of one of the fish pellets.

I think tonight I'll try taking two more small pieces and giving them to two more fungus-less queens to hopefully get four colonies going.

[Formica123]

Update 8-21-2014

I setup three more containers with queens and gave them all small pieces of fungus from the larger garden. So far the two I setup Tuesday are growing and the queens are adding substrate to them daily. The one I setup yesterday doesn't look too good, but it might just be too soon to tell.

The larger colony now has some larvae just starting to form.
This morning I noticed all but the newest queen had added more pieces of substrate to their fungus. The queen with the larger fungus garden actually added about five or so pieces, and created a small pile right in front of the fungus. I can see they really like the broken up fish pellets, because that was pretty much the only thing they added to their fungus. The original queen with the larger fungus actually has a few pieces of the broken up frosted flakes in her extra pile as well, so they seem to like that too.

Here's the original queen and her fungus garden covered in pieces of fish pellets. I actually watched her stick a couple of these on there this morning. (Pic added as attachment)

[Formica123]

Update 8-25-2014

The original queen's fungus has doubled in size yet again, and is now about the size of a Fruit Loop. I put some larger pieces of leaf litter and full-sized fish pellets in this queens container now in case she wants to start adding some larger pieces to her garden. So far she's got a couple of the full-sized fish pellets already piled in her tube. I also see what are obvious larvae now here and there stuck in the fungus. There seemed to be a lot of fluid around them though, so I hope they're okay.
Some of the other queens' donated fungus gardens have grown quite a bit too now. Using pieces of a few different fungus gardens, I managed to get five more containers set up.
There now is a total of 10 containers, but three of them don't look like they're doing too good. For some reason two of those queens have piled lots of leaf litter all over the wet cotton, and their fungus is nowhere to be seen. I'll give it a little more time and see what happens.

[Formica123]

Next Update

this point there are six queens with fungus growing, five of them pretty healthy gardens. For a while I thought I only had five left with growing fungus, but then suddenly a little clump of fungus started growing again in the sixth setup. I haven't fixed the other setups yet because I'm trying to leave the good ones alone for now. The original queen now has a pupa, and a few larvae, one of which is already starting to pupate as well. the first queen with donated fungus has about five larvae, and the other queens all have a good amount of eggs, with one queen having one small larva too. All fungus gardens are continuing to grow larger.

[Formica123]

Update 9-14-2014

First worker! One of the original queen's pupae just eclosed this morning, after being pretty dark orange for about two days now. There are also at least two other pupae in this colony, I think maybe even three, it's just hard to see some of them buried in the fungus garden. For the last two weeks this queen's fungus garden hasn't really gotten any larger. It's been changing, but not growing, so I hope that's normal.
All five of the other queens' fungus gardens are almost as big as the original queen's garden. Most of them have brood, with a few of the oldest ones having multiple larvae. As soon as I get some more of the foraging containers, I plan to bring the amount of colonies back up to 10. I still have around 20 queens in test tubes without fungus, in addition to the ones I've set aside as rejects.

[Formica123]

Update 9-28-2014
The larger original colony has three workers and four pupae that should be eclosing soon. I can also see that the queen has recently laid about 15 more eggs. I setup six more containers with donated fungus from all six existing colonies, but right away the fungus in four of them just died. I'm not sure if they were in too low of humidity for too long as I was gathering small pieces from each existing setup. The fungus in one of the new setups was clearly alive and growing, and another looks like it might be okay, I'm just not sure still. I took a larger piece of fungus from one of the existing healthy fungus gardens and gave it to one of the failed setups.

One of the first colonies I created with donated fungus from the original now has a worker.

[Formica123]

Next update
original colony is still doing well and now has over 10 workers, with many more on the way. They are still mostly interested in the sunflower petals, but have recently fertilized their fungus with a few pieces of some Apple & Cinnamon Chex cereal I gave them. They've been keeping their test tube closed off most of the time by piling substrate in front of the entrance, and only opening it for a little while every once and a while to come out and forage. One thing about these ants is they're always busy. I rarely see them just sitting; they're almost always doing something.

The latest three new colonies I created are all doing fine still. I have since created three more putting the total colonies at 12 now. Six of these 12 have workers now, with the second largest having nine.

of the last few queens I got setup died. I put the reject queen this queen's setup, and gave her half of the dead queen's fungus. I gave the other half to the very last queen I got setup whose fungus hadn't been doing very well.

Last night I added some light pink, and red rose petal pieces to their substrate.

The ants like to pile up the substrate in front of the test tube entrance. Sometimes they even close it off completely.

[Formica123]

Update 2-7-2015

A lot has happened since I last updated this journal. First of all I created new nests for them based on the typical setup used by many people researching fungus-grower species.

Here's the new setup. I made enough for all my colonies, and a few more. The water tank is what keeps the nest hydrated so I don't have to keep doing it manually.

[Formica123]

That's the end of the journal. From here they did very well.

Full journal found on the link I posted.

That's me done, Marco