As in the Youtube video, I suspect that it might be pretty simple to capture wild alates during a nuptial flight, put them in a petri dish, and then have them copulate in the dish. I suspect that even those species that mate in the air might even be receptive to this method. What I think will be more difficult is getting captively bred ants to copulate in this way. Like I once mentioned before, I suspect that the queens need to be primed first by environmental cues in order to release the pheromones that compel the males to mate with them. Without those cues, the male won't know the queen from a stone.
The best thing I can think of to try is to watch for a nuptial flight of a species I'm trying to breed, and then do my best to expose my own captive ants to those natural forces perhaps by putting the whole colony outside in the shade somewhere. Or perhaps, extract my alates from the colony, and then expose those alates to the outside world. Still, I have low expectations that this will work.
Does anyone else reading this thread have colonies that produce queens (drones are easy)?
- Formiculture.com
- Forums
- Gallery
- Members
- Member Map
- Chat
