29 replies to this topic

[RushmoreAnts]

Well bad news.    I tried chilling the queen and the colony and then introducing them. At first it seemed like it had worked, there was no obvious fighting going on. Came back a few hours later though, only to find the queen'd been chopped into bits. I'm going to try nurb's method, hopefully it'll work, cause I really don't want this colony to just dwindle away. I caught this second queen without wings a few days ago, and she's been fed some honey water. I'll try and offer some to the colony as well. I have no definite proof that she's fertile (besides the lack of wings) but at this point I really don't have any alternatives.
 
If I still see signs of aggression after a week or two of the test tube being connected up to the nest, I'll probably call of the whole experiment. Don't wanna lose another queen, even if it means the colony dwindles away. Better a live queen and a big colony in a couple year's time than a dead queen and a big colony now that's still dwindling away.

When I do introductions, I stick around and watch them for hours, as there’s no telling what the ants might do. If the queen is getting injured, I am in a position to rescue her (I also make sure the setup is one I can open up, too).

[Nare]

Preparing for another introduction with the queen I caught a few days ago. I don't want this colony to dwindle off, cause it'll take years to get a colony this size from a new queen, but I also don't want to kill another queen, so I'm going with a passive method:

 

Got some mesh and taped it to the front of the tube. It's sturdier than it looks, and the mesh should be fine enough that no workers can get through. The plan is to leave this tube in the outworld for a week or more and see what happens. The tube has lots of water and the queen's flown only recently and she's been fed, so she's ready to be in there for the long haul - probably upwards of 2 months. She's a really pretty queen too - no way I'm gonna let her be harmed:

 

 

Will update in a week if nothing eventful happens.

[Temperateants]

I have a similar problem. A small colony of 4 workers with a bit of brood, and a queen who recently lost all of their workers. The workerless queen has a coccoon and a bunch of mature looking larvae, and it looks like she is still holding the brood, so hopefully she is able to open the coccoon.

Edited by Temperateants, May 30 2020 - 9:16 AM.

[RushmoreAnts]

I have a similar problem. A small colony of 4 workers with a bit of brood, and a queen who recently lost all of their workers. The workerless queen has a coccoon and a bunch of mature looking larvae, and it looks like she is still holding the brood, so hopefully she is able to open the coccoon.

Camponotus nanitics are very docile. They’d probably accept a queen without any acclimation. However, Nare’s colony has normal workers and majors, which are much more aggressive.

[BroJack]

Okay, so I gave this one a shot with bad but not entirely disastrous results. I connected my queen tube (queen, brood, and 4 nanitics) to the queenless colony nest. I watched for quite awhile (several hours on-and-off) and the majors and sub-majors were interested but no real aggression other than some occasional chewing on the screen. The queen and nanitics seemed to ignore the curious visitors. I left them together overnight so a total of about 24 hours. When I checked them in the morning, the queen was facing off with several sub-majors and a major who were aggressively chewing at the screen. I was down to two nanitics and suspect the queen killed the other two due to stress. I ended the experiment and the queen seems to be doing ok. The queenless colony has a lot of drone brood and will probably suffer a slow decline at this point. An interesting note is that my drones seem to lose their wings within a day or so of eclosing and many are still alive several weeks later.

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[RushmoreAnts]

They could be acid spraying each other. Queens don’t kill their workers for any reason.

[Nare]

Okay, so I gave this one a shot with bad but not entirely disastrous results. I connected my queen tube (queen, brood, and 4 nanitics) to the queenless colony nest. I watched for quite awhile (several hours on-and-off) and the majors and sub-majors were interested but no real aggression other than some occasional chewing on the screen. The queen and nanitics seemed to ignore the curious visitors. I left them together overnight so a total of about 24 hours. When I checked them in the morning, the queen was facing off with several sub-majors and a major who were aggressively chewing at the screen. I was down to two nanitics and suspect the queen killed the other two due to stress. I ended the experiment and the queen seems to be doing ok. The queenless colony has a lot of drone brood and will probably suffer a slow decline at this point. An interesting note is that my drones seem to lose their wings within a day or so of eclosing and many are still alive several weeks later.

I'm sorry things went poorly. Is it possible that the two nanitics escaped through the screen? I found that the screen in my tube was large enough that small workers from the colony could get in, so I doubled up on the screen with the two pieces set at an angle to each other to reduce the size of the holes in the screen.

 

I'm going on 6 days now with the tube connected, and the queen's still alive. She even laid an egg. I'm thinking about pulling off that second layer of screen at the one week mark and allowing the smaller workers to interact with her. Hopefully by the two week mark they'll be acclimated to each other and I can finally release the queen. I'm thinking I'll introduce workers to her one by one until she has maybe a dozen workers, then let them out in the outworld.

 

I think for this sort of operation, patience and caution are key.

[musingsofjoe]

 In honeybees...queenless colonies that are raising drone brood due to laying workers will not accept new queens. Whichever majors are laying those eggs probably see new queens as competition. 

[Nare]

Well unfortunately I'm going to bring this thread to an end. Second queen is now dead as well. I left her in the tube connected to the nest for a week, before removing one layer of mesh and allowing small workers to enter and exit. She seemed fine for several days with the small workers, however when I checked not 20 minutes ago, I found her dead on her back surrounded by small workers. Can't say if she died due to stress or natural causes, or whether she was overwhelmed by aggressive small workers despite the seeming friendly nature of their interactions.

 

I'm not going to try again with this colony. I've only found a single Camponotus queen so far this year (and not for lack of searching), and with flight season for this genus coming to a close, I don't feel comfortable offering this colony another queen in the (what seems to me to now be) slim chance that they will actually accept her. My best bet is to found any queen I find in a mini hearth with heat and constant food, and see how far I can make it before hibernation. With any luck, I can have a nice colony by next year.

[RushmoreAnts]

That’s too bad. But now I see your point in saying that pennsylvanicus queens are beautiful. Caught a queen of these a week or so ago, and she just sparkles in the sunlight.