Lasius niger queen small gaster

[Geodude123]

Hey there. I'm a new antkeeper and i caught 4 queens over 2 nuptial flights recently. All of them started laying right away and everything seems fine.

I'm not too worried about anything else except this: one of the queens seems a little smaller than the others, the 3 others are all laying lots of eggs and have big distended gasters, but this one has only layed a few and her gaster looks small. Could it be that she's not fertilized and these are male alete eggs? I'm sure she's the same species, I caught her during the same time as the others and her colouring and shape is identical except her gaster.

Any ideas as to why this might be the case? Like I said I'm not too worried as I have others and I was always going to catch a few and pick the healthiest/most successful to put in a formicarium, I'm largely just curious.
thanks ant people

[Serafine]

She might just have less reserves, maybe she travelled further or had a hard time finding a nesting spot. You could give her a very small drop of sugar water (on a piece of tinfoil or a Q-tip) although if she is raising her first workers fine that can also wait until she has her first workers to not disturb her during founding.
When you see that she's having issues (like the larvae take very long to develop) try to give her a drop of sugar (energy for the queen) and a dead fruit fly (protein for the larvae).
She's probably fine though and will just take a bit longer to get her colony rolling.

[Geodude123]

Yeah I've given all my ants a toothpick of honey and they all slurp it up straight away, even the fat ones. Thanks for the reassurance, I'll make sure to look after her especially well!

[Geodude123]

so that particular queen ended up dying today. Poor gal I fed her to a wild colony in my garden (protein is protein right) and left the tube outside with her orphaned eggs, so they can adopt them. The other queens look much more healthy than she did though so I'm hopeful