She is my first Formica queen. I found a local F. Fusca nest, and collected about 10 workers and maybe 20 - 30 pupae. I immediately gave the queen 5 - 10 pupae, which she started caring for right off the bat. The rest were all placed in a Tupperware with the workers, and after a few days 3 callows were collected. The callows and the queen accepted each other right away. I did not want to risk introducing her to anything except callows, since this species is very small - 7mm, about the same size as a single Fusca worker.
There are now 6 workers in the tube with the queen, so it appears all is going well!
Unfortunately the original workers and pupae were collected with some sand, and yesterday in the Tupperware I watched a mite crawl onto the back of a callow and latch on. Thankfully I haven't seen any mites in the queen's tube, but I don't think I will risk giving her any more pupae or callows. She currently has the 6 workers, and they are all tending to about 5 larvae plus 15 - 20 pupae. I'm going to try to get them to move to a new tube to further reduce the risk of mite eggs in the remaining sand. Hopefully this will be a good start for them!
