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Feeding claustral queens?

Started By Foogoo , Mar 10 2015 8:09 PM

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4 replies to this topic

#1 Offline Foogoo - Posted March 10 2015 - 8:09 PM

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I realized something today: if claustral queens don't require feeding, what do they feed their initial larvae? Are they able to convert their body stores to nutritious puke? More specifically regarding my D. insanus queens, do they typically accept food or leave them be?

Camponotus vicinus, Crematogaster 1, Crematogaster 2, Formica francoeuri, *, *, Myrmecocystus testaceus, Novomessor cockerelli, Pheidole hyatti, Pogonomyrmex californicus, Pogonomyrmex rugosus, Solenopsis invicta

#2 Offline Gregory2455 - Posted March 10 2015 - 8:26 PM

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able to convert their body stores to nutritious puke

Basically.

#3 Offline dean_k - Posted March 10 2015 - 8:39 PM

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It is understood that queens use wing muscles as her primary source of protein for nanitics. There is also stored fat which she was fed during her time in original colony.

I never fed my Lasius queen I caught in last September. Her first meal was in Feb this year.

#4 Offline Foogoo - Posted March 10 2015 - 8:43 PM

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That's insane. So they can literally reverse digest?

#5 Offline Ra3MaN - Posted March 10 2015 - 9:53 PM

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The queen, Myrmicaria natalensis, that I have, never required feeding, because she too had a huge fat reserve which she fed to the larva, once the larvae become pupae they no longer require feeding. I ended up shoving a piece of meal worm into the test tube -which was accepted. This was at about two months or so from capture, but that was just because of paranoia. I fed the queen before the nanitics enclosed.

Edited by Ra3MaN, March 10 2015 - 9:57 PM.