A month ago I got from a friend in Arizona a Myrmecocystus Navajo queen that had been constantly failing at founding because she kept eat her small larvae. So we made a trade of some ants I had for that queen. With a bonus though... You see,
when I asked to trade for it they said they'd add a Navajo worker from their personal colony and so they did.
2 days later after the worker had been added I came to pick up the queen. She was beautiful! She was like diamonds in my eyes. Her beauty was indescribable, and to think she was all mine! My dream ant species finally in my hands! Dream come true. So off we went back home. But the whole ride home I had a feeling that something horrible had happened to the Navajo and I couldn't stop thinking about it. We got home and that's when my fears were confirmed, the tube had rolled over during the trip and the dry white sand had enveloped all the small white larvae. This was bad news. I didn't know what to do. But I decided to move them into a new tube this time with Sedona sand though so I can see the larvae easily. Problem was... 2 days passed and still nothing the worker only kept cleaning the queen...
And I got impatient... Being impatient is possibly the worst thing for me to do with ants because then I just make the situation worse almost 99.9% of the time. So I moved them into another tube with more sand. Next day still no eggs. I was really desperate at this point. I only had one option left though... To put them back into the test tube with white sand. I decided I needed to clean up the tube of all the scattered sand, and so I did and it looked ok at the end. Then I decided to put in the worker first and then the queen. They were in safely. Now, the next step of my plan was to leave them and wait for a day and then check back up on them.
The suspense was building as I went into my room... I peered over into the tube carefully as if I would've been wiped out of existence if I wasn't careful or if they fell to the ground. I searched a minute... Success! The worker had found larvae and was still digging some up. So I left them again another day. I came back the next day and more larvae were there! This was when I decided to add some dry Sedona sand to make it pretty and so there was enough sand for the larvae.
Fast forward a month or something along those lines they are now doing great. They have a lot of midsized larvae that I can't wait to see them possibly cocoon up next week. Who would've thought that a small worker would be the worker that would save a queen's possible colony! I'd like to name the worker. But not a male name since queens and workers are all females. So leave in the comments please possible female names for the girl and in the end I can decide with all the answers of what to name the worker!
I will leave some pictures of all the stages of the queen and the worker's adventures together! In a little while though.
Edited by NicholasP, November 20 2021 - 1:05 PM.
