Can I start a colony by catching male and female alates from a fire ant mound?

[Leo08052]

Thanks, everyone for your help! I ended up flooding out the colony today in my big bucket and watched for the queen. We found her! She has only 1 wing. There are no alates in the colony, so I was certain it was her. She is with other worker ants now and they are surrounding her so I think we are in business. Just left like 90% of the colony in the bucket rafting and took about 10% of the colony and put them in my AC Solenopsis starter kit. Since we're in Texas, and we have tree roaches, I threw a tree roach nymph we found in there too. Any other tips would be greatly appreciated!!!

[AntsAntsAnts]

I would put the hose on mist. I find this works GREAT for extracting queens. Also, are there no flights, I found 13 queens here in flordia a week ago in 60 degree weather. Put the hose on mist near a fire ant hill and if it is monogynos in my experience, the queen is easier to spot.

that's how i trigger an artificial-kind of natural nuptial flights . also, sometimes the queens just pour out and wonder what on earth is going on

It is when they are near the surface they come pouring out

yes, that's how i sometimes do it

[SolenopsisKeeper]

Thanks, everyone for your help! I ended up flooding out the colony today in my big bucket and watched for the queen. We found her! She has only 1 wing. There are no alates in the colony, so I was certain it was her. She is with other worker ants now and they are surrounding her so I think we are in business. Just left like 90% of the colony in the bucket rafting and took about 10% of the colony and put them in my AC Solenopsis starter kit. Since we're in Texas, and we have tree roaches, I threw a tree roach nymph we found in there too. Any other tips would be greatly appreciated!!!

Get rest of colony, and also there is no guarantee this is a queen, but it is VERY LIKLY, LIKE VERY. In captivity, and alate’s will shed the wings and do worker tasks. In my experience, workers will still care for them but the chances of flooding them at the perfect time is less than 1%. Also, try giving the ants some substrate so they don’t feel like they are in a COMPLETLY new environment. It has taken my queen from the wild until now(caught november) to start laying eggs regularly. Monogynos are the easiest queens to start laying eggs again, because polygynos colonies and monogynos colonies have the same amount of brood, meaning some queens may lay 3 eggs a day and is very stressful to start them laying 100s. This is probably a queen btw. Tips I have is never try to merge(trust me on this) also, are you sure they are invicta? S. Xyloni sounds like a a better fit for texas(Ik you have invicta) Becuase it had one queen. The way to differ is to look at the queens thorax. If it is varying in color, it is invicta, and this a very broad way.(Real way is to see if they have middle tooth in between mandibles)p. Thorax is most Antkeepers experience)