I have been watching the weather and am feeling optimistic about potentially catching some Prenolepis Imparis queens this week. Mentions of these being polygynous have me hoping to keep them that way, though I am wondering about the possibility of allowing the queens to choose on their own to nest together or not.
If I were to catch multiple queens and put them all into a container with an equal number of test tubes set up, would they put themselves into their own tubes (either alone or together) or would they be more likely to just ignore the tubes entirely and refuse to start nesting? I do understand that these in particular are fully claustral and wouldn't expect them to settle under improper conditions, and I would consider queens having "chosen" if they were to stop running around and stayed in the same tube for more than a short time.
If I were to try this and had all the queens pick tubes, I imagine I would be able to plug them with cotton as usual and continue from there, I don't mean keeping a permanent semi-claustral setup- I would hope this could be done within the same day they are caught. I am not sure how quickly each queen would consider a tube "theirs" or how soon they would start becoming territorial though that must also vary between species.
I am not sure what the best size tubes would be for Prenolepis Imparis, or if having different sizes available would make them more or less likely to nest together. Offering different sizes to see the frequency of them founding together might be a completely different idea or thing to test out?
Maybe doing an experiment like this would be more feasible with a different species, though I also am taking into consideration that these are not noted to be particularly territorial, which has me hoping they wouldn't become aggressive towards each other while temporarily being in close proximity. I would imagine some species would only climb into tubes to hide without the intention of nesting there, these being described as shy and timid might mean that would be all I could expect.
Has anyone tried to do something like this, with any species? I would love to hear about experiences with optional polygyny / self-sorting if there is another way of describing it.
