Sup guys! AntCanada here, welcome to another AntCanada video
I'm here in the beautiful Toronto, Canada.
I really missed North America, and I wanted to use this morning to go looking for queen ants
Because I do know that Tetramorium queens are flying now
here in Canada and around North America
So! Come join me, it's going to be a lot of fun. Let's start this
So here I am, um..
it's kind of a uh
Suburb
My dog here 🐶
I usually go queen-hunting in the afternoons, but...
I wanted to
try queen-hunting in the morning
Now, Tetramorium
have their nuptial flights really early in the morning
They're early birds.
As far as ants go mating, they usually have their nuptial flights at 5AM, 6AM, around that time
Of course Tetramorium are known as pavement ants, because you find them a lot around pavements like this
In the summer, sometimes you'll see masses of them gathering at the sides of sidewalks
I'm sure a lot of you guys have seen that
And that's what you call a Tetramorium war.
A lot of times these colonies will come face to face,
and they'll just come boiling up and have a massive Tetramorium war, above ground.
They're a very aggressive species but thankfully they're not really dangerous to humans.
They do have a stinger but it's really small.
So...
It usually isn't enough to do damage on humans. Ok so I see a Camponotus worker there
A lot of you guys email me saying "Can you please identify this queen?" and a lot of times it's a Camponotus worker.
Camponotus Pennsylvanicus.
This is not a queen, the queens of this species are much larger.
They have larger abdomens, or gastors I should say, and a much larger thorax, or mesosoma
Alright so
I'm gonna continue looking down this side walk
for queens.
Now for those of you who follow us on Facebook our Facebook Page
Hey and I just found a queen awesome right here.
I was saying on Facebook we did a live feed
Where we live streamed hunting for queens
and we found a queen a Tetramorium queen but the wind blew her away
but I'm not gonna let this one get away.
So let me put this down here,
come on
sorry guys. It’s ok
Alright guys, and we have our first queen of the day, there she is!
Tetramorium, easy
Ok guys so now that we have our queen right there.
Beautiful Tetramorium queen, pavement ant
We have to create a test tube set up for her.
So this is a queen I caught a few days ago
And this is your typical test tube set up
It basically requires a water portion plugged in place with a cotton.
Another cotton placed here so she can breathe
And what this does is creates a very constant environment here which acts as her claustral cell.
You know, it replicates her underground chamber while she is getting ready to lay eggs.
And then in a few days you'll have this
Which is a queen but she's got eggs you see that there.
See that batch of eggs there
It only took her two days or a day
to start laying which is great.
See those little tiny eggs
She has some in her mouth
Now of course there is no way to tell for sure if she is fertilized
but the fact that she is taking care of the brood
like she's got a bunch in her mouth.
It is a good sign cause usually if they aren't fertilized
and they lay eggs they eggs are scattered and she kind of ignores them.
But, it looks like she's taking good care of these eggs.
Now typically you wanna keep here covered and in the dark
wrapped in maybe a towel
tucked away in your deepest
closet or drawer
Because you don't want to stress them out too much at this stage
I'm kind of exposing her like this so you guys can see what it looks like
But if you have a queen, I really suggest putting her away in the dark
Because you really don't want to stress her out, she might eat her eggs
Or she might not eat at all
I would suggest if you want to check up on her, check up on her perhaps...
once every week
It usually takes about one month to go from egg to worker
So in about a month, this queen will have her first set of workers, the nanitics
Now, Tetramorium queens are...
fully claustral, so they don't need to eat within this stage.
They have everything they need within them
Her thorax, which house the wing muscles
She draws her ATP, her energy, from those back muscles
And then she creates this self-made nutritious soup which she feeds to the larvae
That's how they grow
She creates food, baby food, from her own body
which is really cool
And then when the first workers arrive, you can wait maybe...
1-5 days, and then you can feed them
Either by a tiny, tiny drop of honey administered by a toothpick
Or maybe a cricket leg, something like that
When the workers first arrive, they're still hardening, and still feeding from the queen's self-made soup
So you don't have to worry about feeding them immediately after
Alright., and for those of you who need a more in-depth tutorial
on how to take care of queens when you first catch them,
be sure to watch our caring for queens tutorial,
and also check out our test tube tutorial if you need a tutorial on how to create the test tube setup.
Never, EVER guys fill this with honeywater,
it has to be fresh water.
Alright, thanks guys for tuning in!
And, stay tuned for another video