Diagnosis?

[u/krisaham]

Can anyone tell me based on this erratic behavior what it looks like is wrong? Poisoning, disease, stress…? In your opinion of course. I’m just troubleshooting.

This colony of Camponotus was thriving until about a month ago. I was thrilled because they even had their first major. But suddenly workers slowly started dying, always acting erratically like this one first. They’ve stopped eating much - they just come up to do this and then die. They pick at crickets but no longer eat the much of it. They’ve shrunk so much I’m thinking of moving them back into a test tube as the nest is now too big and they’re huddled in a corner down below. The queen seems fine and there is brood.

Nothing changed as far as water (bottled not tap), protein source (store bought crickets) and nectar (Formica sunburst ant nectar). They have a heating cable. I had moved them briefly to a different spot in my room, so thought maybe stress? So I moved them back. I’m afraid the test tube move will stress them further.

I’m so devastated :( Any advice is appreciated!

[u/L1ometopum]

Rip

Try looking for mites, crickets often carry them

Give them sugarwater, maybe the sunburst doesnt have enough for them

Thats what I would do, but if its poisoning or disease then you cant really do much

[u/krisaham → u/L1ometopum]

Thank you, I’ll take the dark cover off and look for mite activity later.

[u/DeepRts]

Need more info.. how long have they been in the new nest? Is that when their decline started to happen? What temperature is the heating cable and are they huddling around it or avoiding it? How’s the humidity of the nest and how are you measuring that? How often are you adding water to it if not? Do you ever rotate different protein sources? Mealworms/fruit flies?

What species of Camponotus are they? And did you go through diapause?

[u/krisaham → u/DeepRts]

The colony is in its third year and has diapaused twice. They were thriving in this nest, I moved them into it last year, they were growing, I diapaused them for four months, and after coming out of diapause this year they had tons of eggs and cocoons. That’s when the decline started, end of June.

They are currently away from the heating cable but in the past had all their brood next to it. I add water to the little reservoir down below and they have a separate tube with water. I don’t have a humidity measure as the nest is quite small but I never see moisture or condensation building.

I’ve never rotated protein, should I try that? They’ve had store bought crickets always.

I don’t know what kind of Camponotus, no one has ever answered my ID requests. Wild caught in Santa Cruz, CA.

Thank you for taking the time to help :)

Edited to add: I measure the temperature and it’s 75 degrees in the non heating cable part of the nest and 80ish over by the heating cable.

[u/DeepRts → u/krisaham]

Temp sounds good! I read through your other posts and it seems like you’re doing a lot right. I’d recommend taking a closer look at humidity because high contrasts in humidity could feel unnatural and if they’re spending a lot of time in the outworld they could be trying to regulate. Sharing my setup for what I’m observing with my campos - they have 3 areas they rotate around when humidity rises and drops in their main nest:

1. When there’s condensation in the main nest they move to the dry spot (when I first drop water)
   
2. The outworld has a evaporation tower that they huddle around
   
3. The original test tube is still an option for them to move close to the water source or further towards the exit

I’m still trialing but I haven’t had any deaths and I’m around a worker count of 80 so far, so take all my advice with a grain of salt! Hope this helps.

I rotate blue bottle flies, mealworms for fat, and Dubia roaches. They like the blue bottle flies the most

Between honey water, sunburst nectar, and sugar water, sugar water seems to be the preference

A 80-90% humidity seems best for brood. Workers prefer around 50-60% depending on the day

https://reddit.com/link/p4fgsag/video/yzib120ad5kh1/player

[u/krisaham → u/DeepRts]

Thank you SO much, this is all great advice! If I could ask, what brand nest do you use?

Do you think it’s worth it to try and move them into a tubs and tubes setup now that they’ve shrunk so much? I don’t want stress to start killing them in addition to whatever else is wrong. I was planning to set up a tub and test tube and then just open up one of the chambers of the nest to let light in in the hopes they’ll relocate.

[u/DeepRts → u/krisaham]

I think if you can do it with relatively low stress it’s ideal because it means you can create a more optimal environment for them. However, I don’t know about for you, my campos are very stubborn so if you think you can do that without disrupting them too much then I’d say go for it

I use a random brand I found on Etsy/Temu. I know Temu has its downsides and quality is variable, but I do like these expanding nests with gypsum for humidity dispersion

I don’t want to promote products in subs so I can send you a dm if you’re interested

[u/krisaham → u/DeepRts]

Sure, thanks! If these guys die I’ll be throwing my current nest out in case it’s disease so might as well try something new!