Before you start reading this post, make sure you have checked the most recent post on this colony https://ants853.com/2020/02/21/weaver-ants-stillness-of-the-lake/

These last two weeks have been quite slow paced for the Weaver Ants. They keep mostly to themselves still, not much perimeter foraging, they just like going up and down towards the mealybug, where I can see them filling up their gasters to return to the nest afterwards.

Talking about the mealybug, I finally received my friends aphids. There were quite a few of them, of varied sizes.

I tried to place them near the new lemon tree shoots, in hopes that they would transfer successfully.

I had been told in Discord, that this would probably fail, for multiple reasons… and so it seems… the next day, multiple aphids were found dead or twitching on the ground. I found a couple of the larger ones on the lemon leaves, but none seemed to be sucking anything.

Few days later, the host leaves were dead and I couldn’t find any aphids any longer… quite a pity and disappointment. The next plan will be to go to the plant nursery in search of any more mealybugs, or go to the forest in search of other potential symbiotic insects.

I keep feeding my colony as usual, baby to medium sized roaches. They always take them, but sometimes they drop them, other times they bring them in.

A couple weeks ago, I reported that 3rd nest was drying up, but actually it seems it was rotting away…

So I removed it, and opened it up to see what was happening and report to you.

I think this only happened because the nest got abandoned. Otherwise, they ants would have surely have removed all the garbage and dropped it to the ground as all arboreal ants do.

To justify the title of the post, I believe we are nearing a turning point on this colony. The colony seems stable, I have observed no more dead pupae being dropped, also the temperatures have climbed from 21C to 25C, and so I turned off the ceramic bulb, otherwise the colony would be at 30ish C, which would be too much. But this week I observed something that I wasn’t expecting.

As I was feeding them a larger roach, the number of workers that exited the nest and got mobilized was truly unexpected… and the speed at which they made so was also very surprising. This suggests that these workers are older now and ready to forage and that the colony is growing and progressing well.

And so I do believe a massive storm is brewing on the horizon and soon will be upon us!

What do you think of all of this? Let me know your thoughts in the comment section!! And I would truly appreciate if you could follow the blog if you enjoy the content and the weekly posts!

Well, this is all for this week’s updates! Thank you for taking the time to read the posts and see you in two weeks!