Decided I might as well do a dedicated journal to this species, considering how finicky they are. Anyways, I found my second queen on the same track of railway as the first, although this time not being attacked. She spotted me and ran underneath the railroad tie, so I had to lie down and scrape away the rocks until I could aspirate her. I have her in a customized test tube, with a round of cork over the cotton plug to reduce humidity and preserve water, as well as a cork divider splitting the tube down the middle lengthwise to reduce chamber space. One of the chambers is blocked off from the front and only accessible by a hole in the divider wall, this is where I hope she founds, but either chamber is fine. Fed her some syrup, and so far she's nice and healthy. She's also unusually large, about 7-8 mm depending on how much food she's taken in, a full mm above usual. I'll introduce some wild workers today using sugar baits.
Regurgitating an infrabuccal pellet.
Her tube.
