7 replies to this topic

[gs5248]

I caught a lot of Tetramorium Queens today. Unfortunately, since I was at school, I only had 3 test tubes, meaning some test tubes had to have two or more queens. I have separated most of them, but one of test tubes already has eggs in it! So I am deciding to start a journal documenting this dual queen colony. We'll see how it goes! I'll upload pictures later.

[Yourbasicantkeeper]

I can't wait! 

[Skwiggledork]

Good luck. I've got 3 test tubes set up with 2-4 queens each with pupa right now. Planning on letting 2 of them just play out and the third I'll split once there's workers to make sure I get at least 1 surviving colony. I hear they will kill down to 1 queen, but it's not unheard of to end up killing all the queens by mistake.

[gs5248]

Good luck. I've got 3 test tubes set up with 2-4 queens each with pupa right now. Planning on letting 2 of them just play out and the third I'll split once there's workers to make sure I get at least 1 surviving colony. I hear they will kill down to 1 queen, but it's not unheard of to end up killing all the queens by mistake.

I wonder though, what if the queens were originally from the same colony, making them sisters?

Edited by gs5248, June 29 2023 - 5:49 PM.

[gs5248]

 

 

Here they are! One of them had their wings on before the second one was put in but removed one of them later.

Edited by gs5248, June 29 2023 - 7:17 PM.

[Manitobant]

Yeah unfortunately I doubt this arrangement will last long as immigrans found through pleometrosis, meaning once the workers arrive one of the queens will be killed off. However doing this in captivity can actually be beneficial as it allows you to get a much larger first generation and thus the colony will grow much faster.

[Ants_Dakota]

Yeah unfortunately I doubt this arrangement will last long as immigrans found through pleometrosis, meaning once the workers arrive one of the queens will be killed off. However doing this in captivity can actually be beneficial as it allows you to get a much larger first generation and thus the colony will grow much faster.

Agreed. Both me and AntsDakota have experimented with this, and yup, immigrans will found with only one queen(thank goodness for the native ants). 

[gs5248]

I hope I will actually get to see it if it does happen. Hopefully the queen that still has the one wing is actually fertile as well.