24 replies to this topic

[PwnerPie]

 

 

also a thought animals that thermo-regulate don't necessarily need to eat as often as animals that maintain their own heat. but i see your point and findings good sir. where as you seem pretty experienced my guidelines i guess would be more for the newer people who don't know everything and so it may ruin their chances. but good documentation on your part

 

 

 

 

Ah, definitely see your point here. Over time once I get enough documented, may be able to get some "best practices" for the new ones!

 

i think you should do an experiment where you feed half and leave half to be natural foundings and then when the first generation workers show up try to take measurements to see if feeding them actually improved the workers size, also probably good to count egg batches to see if the extra protein promotes additional egg laying

 

Good call! I will record this going forward. Once the nuptial flights start up here I will open a journal to track the progress here.

[AntBread]

I am a strong proponent of feeding queens, I do it with all of mine, and I have yet to have 1 eat an egg. They are actually laying eggs like crazy!

 

As far as yours not tending the brood, just make sure the area is warm. She will work through her issues. If she is eating that means she has not given up (my first ant queen did this, because I did everything wrong..), so just make sure she is warm and fed. And try not to bother her too much (no more than once a day checking on her). 

 

Just relax. Ants will do what they feel like doing. If she is fertile, you should be good. I find honey to be very helpful in getting fully-claustral queens to start laying, give that a shot! Very potent, and does not mold easy. Fairly easy to put a drop in a closed test tube without worry about it molding (takes about a month in my experiences to mold in an ant environment). GL! don't stress!

Thanks for the advice

[AntBread]

 

 

I am a strong proponent of feeding queens, I do it with all of mine, and I have yet to have 1 eat an egg. They are actually laying eggs like crazy!

 

As far as yours not tending the brood, just make sure the area is warm. She will work through her issues. If she is eating that means she has not given up (my first ant queen did this, because I did everything wrong..), so just make sure she is warm and fed. And try not to bother her too much (no more than once a day checking on her). 

 

Just relax. Ants will do what they feel like doing. If she is fertile, you should be good. I find honey to be very helpful in getting fully-claustral queens to start laying, give that a shot! Very potent, and does not mold easy. Fairly easy to put a drop in a closed test tube without worry about it molding (takes about a month in my experiences to mold in an ant environment). GL! don't stress!

feeding queens can produce different results with every queen. some queens will (who are claustral) will feel uncomfortable with anything but her and her brood in her chamber and may cause her to eat her eggs as she feels the chamber is compromised. this won't happen for every ant but i feel that if you have a claustral queen why risk adding stress and just let her do what she does naturally

 

 

The thought here, is that it is very hard to know for sure how well fed the queen was when she flew from the nest. Also, if a queen is starving, that is going to cause more stress. So if she is bumped and gets any more stressed she will eat her eggs in case she needs to run. Even in the wild, queens will deal with some interruptions. And if food is dropped into their nest, they will eat it. 

I feed my queens to give them the best chance of success as possible. I am sure some will not like it (I do have a carpenter ant that refuses to eat, I stopped trying to feed her and have her locked away now. I have a strong feeling she is infertile though), so I definitely agree its not a 100% approach. But from my testing, it has been enormously successful in feeding the queens. Especially after hibernation, I couldn't get the honey on the wall fast enough, they were eating it right off the toothpick. Seeing how much their gasters grew, they were starving. Within 2 days of feeding 4 out of the 5 queens started laying their first eggs.

 

Recently I gave 3 founding queens with larvae a section of meal worm, within a basic test tube setup with no workers. All 3 were eating within 5 minutes, and were running back a forth eating more then feeding their larvae. I won't say at this point it was 100% the right thing to do, more testing is needed, but at this point I have to think that it will make the larva more healthy going forward since they were fed more.

 

I will continue with my testing with the queens I get this coming year, and let you know how it goes!

A thought: Nature provides humans with the ability to go about a month without food, I doubt anyone likes to go more than half a day without food.   Nature provides queens the ability to go the entire founding process without food, I doubt they like waiting that long to eat! I bet they will feel a lot more comfortable if they are full and don't have to worry about starving! They will probably feel a lot better about laying more eggs as well since they have so much food to give.

 

Alright thanks! She has just laid a batch of eggs and has a single larvae. 

[anttics]

I am a strong proponent of feeding queens, I do it with all of mine, and I have yet to have 1 eat an egg. They are actually laying eggs like crazy!

As far as yours not tending the brood, just make sure the area is warm. She will work through her issues. If she is eating that means she has not given up (my first ant queen did this, because I did everything wrong..), so just make sure she is warm and fed. And try not to bother her too much (no more than once a day checking on her).

Just relax. Ants will do what they feel like doing. If she is fertile, you should be good. I find honey to be very helpful in getting fully-claustral queens to start laying, give that a shot! Very potent, and does not mold easy. Fairly easy to put a drop in a closed test tube without worry about it molding (takes about a month in my experiences to mold in an ant environment). GL! don't stress!

feeding queens can produce different results with every queen. some queens will (who are claustral) will feel uncomfortable with anything but her and her brood in her chamber and may cause her to eat her eggs as she feels the chamber is compromised. this won't happen for every ant but i feel that if you have a claustral queen why risk adding stress and just let her do what she does naturally

The thought here, is that it is very hard to know for sure how well fed the queen was when she flew from the nest. Also, if a queen is starving, that is going to cause more stress. So if she is bumped and gets any more stressed she will eat her eggs in case she needs to run. Even in the wild, queens will deal with some interruptions. And if food is dropped into their nest, they will eat it.
I feed my queens to give them the best chance of success as possible. I am sure some will not like it (I do have a carpenter ant that refuses to eat, I stopped trying to feed her and have her locked away now. I have a strong feeling she is infertile though), so I definitely agree its not a 100% approach. But from my testing, it has been enormously successful in feeding the queens. Especially after hibernation, I couldn't get the honey on the wall fast enough, they were eating it right off the toothpick. Seeing how much their gasters grew, they were starving. Within 2 days of feeding 4 out of the 5 queens started laying their first eggs.

Recently I gave 3 founding queens with larvae a section of meal worm, within a basic test tube setup with no workers. All 3 were eating within 5 minutes, and were running back a forth eating more then feeding their larvae. I won't say at this point it was 100% the right thing to do, more testing is needed, but at this point I have to think that it will make the larva more healthy going forward since they were fed more.

I will continue with my testing with the queens I get this coming year, and let you know how it goes!
A thought: Nature provides humans with the ability to go about a month without food, I doubt anyone likes to go more than half a day without food. Nature provides queens the ability to go the entire founding process without food, I doubt they like waiting that long to eat! I bet they will feel a lot more comfortable if they are full and don't have to worry about starving! They will probably feel a lot better about laying more eggs as well since they have so much food to give.

Alright thanks! She has just laid a batch of eggs and has a single larvae.

bro. I have a suggestion. tomorrow go and capture small ants of the same species from a wild nest. try to introduce one after a week to the queen. make sure they are small. for the love of god do not get a major. make sure you put the worker in the fridge to calm her. then put her inside with the queen. if they try to kill each other. wait a month to introduced them to her. I doubt it will work has. but as a last resort. it has worked for some poly species from what I have read. you have nothing to lose. plus small ants can not kill a queen.

[anttics]

I'm in the same situation as you. I capture my first queen camp sansabeanus on the 28th of March. she has like 9 eggs. munch on 3. it's been half a month. and despite having her in 85 to 90 degrees. her eggs have grown very little. I did not know how slow they develop. Ill check on her every 2 weeks. I'll give her till the end of May. and I'll introduced a worker I had for a month in a test tube. I will also feed her after 2 months with out food. I think she will take it. good luck for both of us rookies.