6 replies to this topic

[AntNoob]

Getting your queen past founding stage

[AntNoob]

I have caught 3 camponotus pennsylvanicus queens and all of them died and I have no idea why. Can anyone help me?

[Major]

Various reasons could lead to the death of a queen. Insufficient temperature, humidity, habitat, etc. Your gonna want to be a lot more specific than that. For all we know with the details you've given, aliens swooped down and zapped them. She could have been sick or infertile. Heck, queens even die randomly for no apparent reason!

Give us some more details.

[AntNoob]

I kept them at room temperature and the normal test tube setup.

[Ikerrilove]

I kept mine under my bathroom sink in the cupboard in a box with towels around it. I didn't check on them for a few weeks and then once a week to check for nanitics.

 

The bathroom was blocked off so it had no air conditioning, I used well water and plastic tubes. That seemed to work for me. My Camponotus were slow but most got nanitics eventually.

 

I don't think many people use pesticides here except one neighbour to get rid of weeds.

 

I have a large yard with woods in the back and a river in the front and found almost all of them in the yard around the house.

 

 

You could try posting details like that and see if something might be causing an issue for your queens.

[AntNoob]

I keep mine next to the fish tank and checked 3 days later and the queens were dead. It got no air conditioning and stayed around 80F I live in a big city and found themin 90F + temp on asphalt lot.

[Ikerrilove]

From what I understand, a lot of factors can play in why a queen lives and succeeds in founding a colony, and queens that die after capture. All you can do is learn as much as you can and try again with the next queen.