Hello! I caught 3 Camponotus floridanus queens on 7/8/17 and have been raising them since then. Two of the colonies have approximately 20 workers, while the other has around 15. One of the larger colonies now has its first major worker. Is that unusual? This is my first season of catching queens, but everything I have read about Camponotus is that they will not typically create majors until at least their second year. Granted, I believe that mostly applies to northern species that must be hibernated, however, less than 4 months seems pretty quick. What do you all think? Also, am I doing this correctly by not hibernating these ants since I live in Florida?
Bonus: The two larger colonies were started in test tubes, while the smaller one was started in an Atom C. After the colonies hit around 7 workers (which was a little over 2 months after catching the queens), I put them all in tupperware containers and opened the founding chambers so the small tupperwares could serve as outworlds. The two test tube colonies did well. The Atom C colony, however, eventually moved out of the Atom C and into a bare corner of the outworld almost 3 months after catching the queen. I added a test tube setup to that outworld and the colony moved into that. A few workers would explore the Atom C after the move, but the queen and brood stayed in the test tube and never moved back into the founding formicarium.
