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[CatsnAnts]

I found a bunch of S. molesta queens during a nuptial flight one evening in early July. However, I recently noticed that there was one queen in particular that was singled out from the group and occasionally was picked on by workers and did not appear to be S. molesta. I seperated this queen as well as two other queens that looked a little similar to this oddball queen (although these two queens could easily be S. molesta since they are more similar S. molesta than the first queen mentioned, and these queens were not singled out like the first queen either). The single queen that I'm almost positive is different is on the cotton in the pictures, as she is much darker, and the two other queens are shown in the picture as sitting on the brood pile that originally belonged to my 15 queen S. molesta colony, so the workers will be a majority of S. molesta. Could that single queen be S. picta?

 

 

[Aaron567]

A darker queen of molesta. Anything else wouldn't be flying in the evening and would look strikingly different when compared to other molesta queens up close. It's pretty normal for certain odd queens to be completely rejected from a group, in many species. Assuming these queens are molesta or at least molesta-sized, a queen of S. picta would be only about 1/2 or 2/3 the size of them.