Formica fully claustral queen died

[Scynthius]

Caught 8 queens on August 6 and one of the 8 died sometime between last Saturday and today. It was caught without wings on(I know this doesn't indicate anything) caught in the central Alberta area keep at room or warmer. I had posted picture here and was identified as a formica (podzilica?) Queen.

I also had another one of them die on me a couple weeks ago be cause I didn't learn it was a social parasite till after it had died unfortunately.

Just curious as to why this queen would have died. I have caught 10 queens total this summer all formica. Only one has laid eggs thus far but I was told some won't lay till spring.

The only queen I fed (just a little honey at this point) was the formica aserva which currently has 1 host worker

Any ideas? Can post pictures of the queen if you want

[tlcants]

Hi sorry to hear of the deaths.

There are many different reasons that they could of died, diseases, mites, fungus, ect.
Its always sad when a queen dies but we just have to be patient and keep trying.

Sorry I couldn't give you a definitive answer.

[Scynthius]

Thanks for the reply.

Do queens die when they aren't fertile? Almost like giving up on life because they won't have workers to take care of them?

[Batspiderfish]

It's not like anybody autopsies their ants, so we don't know why they die "mysteriously".