I'm in a bit of a pickle. I have two Prenolepis Imparis queens in a test tube setup. Call them Queen A and Queen B. I have another setup with a solitary ant queen of same species, call her Queen C. Now Queen B died for some reason and since she left her eggs behind alongside Queen A's eggs, I decided to move Queen C into the setup that housed Queen A and B(after removing dead Queen B). I taped their setups together, wrapped it in a towel, leaving queen C's old setup unwrapped so that light would get her to move into Queen B's setup.
It worked and both ants are getting along. However, Queen C left behind her small clutch of eggs in the old setup. After a couple hours she hasn't come back to retrieve them. Furthermore, I checked on them an hour ago and Queen C has pulled at some of the water reservoir cotton(I guess trying to explore more) and in the process buried Queen B's clutch of eggs under some cotton fibers(Queen B had laid them really close to the cotton). You can barely see the eggs tangled underneath the cotton and it doesn't seem like the ants can reach the eggs or know there there.
I'm afraid to refrigerate them and try to move the eggs myself with a skewer, both cuz I didn't wanna mess up their internal clock during the founding stages and I'm afraid to hurt the super tiny eggs. Will the ants move the eggs themselves back to their setup? Will they be able to smell the buried eggs and unearth them? I'm very new to Ant keeping and am desperate to help my girls. What should I do?!
Help! Abandonded Eggs
Moderator: ooper01
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Help! Abandonded Eggs
Beginner keeper of Prenolepis Imparis and Formica pallidefulva. Would appreciate all the help I can
Re: Help! Abandonded Eggs
Give them some time. They'll most likely move then eventually.
Hi I'm Jack, How are you?
- Batspiderfish
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Re: Help! Abandonded Eggs
Don't try to meddle with them anymore. All they need is to raise one worker, so a couple of eggs at the beginning are not going to matter.
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