I recently collected 11 small brown Myrmecocystus sp. queens and noticed that most of them had quite a few mites burrowed into the area where their wings were once attached and the underside of their neck. A couple of them didn't have any, but most had three or more. Luckily I have a microscope that made it possible to see them good enough to remove them. I was able to pull most of them off, but a few of them just crushed, making them much harder to remove. Hopefully there won't be a problem with the ones that weren't fully removed; I at least killed them.
I have not noticed any mites on queens I have collected in the past, although they may be a reason for some of the sudden deaths. I'm wondering why there were so many on these particular queens. Is there just a high concentration of them in the location where I collected the queens, or is it something about that genus of ant? I'm also a little worried that there may be eggs somewhere that are going to hatch and start attacking these queens again. I suppose once the wing wounds heal up, that spot will be less vulnerable, but the neck will probably always be a target for these things.
Here's a picture of one of the queens that had quite a few mites on it.
