Update 6.IX.2024
On August 15, I received a parasitic Lasius queen from TheAntGuy through a trade. She was later identified as possibly Lasius californicus, if not then at least in the Acanthomyops subgenus. Although she didn't come with any hosts, I was able to keep her alive until I managed to get my own on September 2. Lasius in the Bay Area are a bit of a pain for me to get, since they don't occur in the East Bay. It took at least 30 minutes or so across the bridge to get some, but at least it was worth it in the end. My spot for them had almost no rocks, so I had to dig part of a colony out of the ground. Luckily, I managed to get 40-50 workers from that excavation. Unfortunately, no brood was unearthed. My introduction method was to cull a few workers and offer them to the queen. Upon discovering the workers, the queen groomed the corpses and then herself. My assumption was that she was spreading the workers' pheromones onto herself. After a couple hours, I removed the dead bodies and introduced a couple callow workers I found to the queen. No aggression and plenty of grooming was observed. Shortly after, I removed the rest of the workers (which were placed in the refrigerator for a while) from their tube and dumped them in with the queen. As expected, there were no aggressive responses from either party. The workers consolidated around the queen and groomed her, which was a good sign. As of today, the colony has been fed well and is still in the tube until I can get a small nest for them prepared. I hope this colony does well, as I've never gotten a parasitic species to biological workers before.
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Edited by bmb1bee, September 6 2024 - 11:51 AM.
