17 replies to this topic

[FelixTheAnter]

I have a small aviary where I put my parrots when the weather is nice, and I just discovered an ant colony in one of the potted plants. I definitely don't want an ant colony in my aviary, so I decided to collect them & either keep them or move to a new area.

I flipped the pot, sifted the soil until I found the queen, and put her in a small test tube. Then I used an aspirator to collect all the workers that I could find. It was a small colony, maybe 25 workers total.

I put her tube & the collected workers into a Tupperware, and covered them to let them reunite with the queen and move into the test tubes in peace. But when I just went to check on them, the queen was dead. She was surrounded by workers who were biting and tugging on her, and had clearly just killed her. There were also 3 dead workers

I do have multiple ant colonies in my yard, and am wondering if there's also one living in a nearby potted plant.

I also did not find a single egg, larvae, or pupae being carried by the workers or in the soil where the queen was, which I thought was weird.

The queen looks just like my Lasius Niger queen, but the workers seem a bit larger than my L. Niger workers. However, they are the most common species here in the Netherlands.

Any idea what could have happened? Is it because I separated them from the queen for ~15 minutes? I'm so confused and sad!

Attached an image of the (dead) queen with a dead worker on her antennae, and a live worker trying to bite her abdomen free from her body.

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[ANTdrew]

You probably injured the queen during collection. The workers are not letting the protein go to waste.

[FelixTheAnter]

I definitely don't think she was injured, she was looking and acting normal & I was extremely gentle with her

[Kaelwizard]

Same thing happened with a Lasius aphidicola colony I tried to collect last year. Perhaps Lasius kill the queen if they believe they are in danger? It wouldn’t really make sense but I’m not sure what else would explain it.

[Antkeeper01]

Same thing happened with a Lasius aphidicola colony I tried to collect last year. Perhaps Lasius kill the queen if they believe they are in danger? It wouldn’t really make sense but I’m not sure what else would explain it.

why would they do that its counterproductive

[PetsNotPests]

Same thing happened with a Lasius aphidicola colony I tried to collect last year. Perhaps Lasius kill the queen if they believe they are in danger? It wouldn’t really make sense but I’m not sure what else would explain it.

Not just Lasius, I collected a small Monomorium colony, and moved them into a natural setup. All went well until they started moving in, and the workers tore off all 8 queen's legs. 

[Kaelwizard]

Same thing happened with a Lasius aphidicola colony I tried to collect last year. Perhaps Lasius kill the queen if they believe they are in danger? It wouldn’t really make sense but I’m not sure what else would explain it.

why would they do that its counterproductive

That’s why I said it doesn’t make sense but this seems to happen all the time.

Edited by Kaelwizard, July 1 2021 - 10:40 AM.

[AntsMaryland]

Is it possible you didn't collect that colony's queen and additionally dug up a founding queen as well? 

 

I don't know. Just wanted to throw that idea out there.

 

Although now thinking about it further, that is very unlikely...

Edited by AntsMaryland, July 1 2021 - 11:59 AM.

[Manitobant]

Same thing happened with a Lasius aphidicola colony I tried to collect last year. Perhaps Lasius kill the queen if they believe they are in danger? It wouldn’t really make sense but I’m not sure what else would explain it.

I've collected lasius and this never happens. Also random off topic question: how did you collect an entire aphidicola colony?

[Kaelwizard]

 

Same thing happened with a Lasius aphidicola colony I tried to collect last year. Perhaps Lasius kill the queen if they believe they are in danger? It wouldn’t really make sense but I’m not sure what else would explain it.

I've collected lasius and this never happens. Also random off topic question: how did you collect an entire aphidicola colony?

 

Not the entire colony. There was a queen and many workers right under a rock so I tried to collect as many as I could. It is possible she wasn't the queen except I literally found her on top of the colony. There was absolutely no way they wouldn't have known she was there.

[FelixTheAnter]

Is it possible you didn't collect that colony's queen and additionally dug up a founding queen as well?

I don't know. Just wanted to throw that idea out there.

Although now thinking about it further, that is very unlikely...

This was one of my thoughts as well, especially because I didn't find ANY brood with them. But I've been watching for nuptial flights every day for the last month, checking the big colonies near my house for alates swarming at the entrance, and haven't seen anything yet. I've also been checking here (https://www.antforum...1fe33cfdf95f301) for reported nuptial flights sightings in NL, and haven't seen anything yet.

[FelixTheAnter]

It sounds like this isn't necessarily unheard of then, a colony killing a queen. I was extra shocked, because this is how I got my first Lasius colony. I turned over a flowerpot in my yard to find 100+ workers, a queen, and tons of brood. I didn't know what to do so I threw them into a jar of sand, then moved them AGAIN after building a little formicarium...they did just fine and are currently sitting on my windowsill with their population having grown at least 50% since I collected them about a month ago. So I was really shocked to see these guys kill the queen as if they didn't even know her.

[FelixTheAnter]

Does she look to be L. Niger to you guys?

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[Kaelwizard]

She might be Lasius umbratus, a temporary social parasite. She probably infiltrated the colony in order to kill the queen and take it over, and she clearly wasn't successful. I'm not 100% sure as her proportions seem off for L. umbratus.

Edited by Kaelwizard, July 2 2021 - 8:21 AM.

[Manitobant]

She might be Lasius umbratus, a temporary social parasite. She probably infiltrated the colony in order to kill the queen and take it over, and she clearly wasn't successful. I'm not 100% sure as her proportions seem off for L. umbratus.

i was thinking that too. However, she looks way too bulky to be a parasite, and the head is quite small.

[FelixTheAnter]

Do Lasius species do budding, where they send out new queens to nest in different areas from the main nest? Today I dumped the remaining workers (that killed her) near another nest entrance...and there was zero conflict with the other ants. Could it perhaps be that this queen and a few workers had just moved here from a nearby huge colony?

[Kaelwizard]

Do Lasius species do budding, where they send out new queens to nest in different areas from the main nest? Today I dumped the remaining workers (that killed her) near another nest entrance...and there was zero conflict with the other ants. Could it perhaps be that this queen and a few workers had just moved here from a nearby huge colony?

I don’t think Lasius bud.

[AntsMaryland]

They don't bud. At least the "common" ones we usually talk about in the Lasius genus don't. I don't know if any Lasius spp. bud, of course.

Edited by AntsMaryland, July 2 2021 - 12:16 PM.