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Mated queens

Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 10:35 pm
by Dearth335
Hi, has anyone here ever got queens to mate in captivity. Because I believe I might have. Here's the story, I was walking in a more southern part of CO springs. And i had a shovel with me. After walking up a path and accidentally stepping in poison ivy, i found an anthill. it was very close to nuptial flight so all the elates were at the top of the nest. i decided to dig up the anthill and found two Lasius queens. which i assumed weren't mated because they had wings and were in a nest with ants. since I have never seen a polygynous Lasius[i/] colonies. and when i put two of the queens in the same test tube because they were from the same colony (turned out to be a bad decision. after the fact.). I also found a male ant (which i assumed to be a Lasius[i/] male. I was right) i then put the male in and it died a day later. And 2 weeks after that i found one of the queens dead with both of it's wings on and the other with no wings. now, a week later the queen has eggs and larvae which are incredibly small so i assume they are worker's larvae. So now i believe that I have mated a queen in captivity. otherwise, what else could have happened. :D

Re: Mated queens

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2017 9:00 pm
by idahoantgirl
Dearth335 wrote:
Wed Sep 20, 2017 10:35 pm
Hi, has anyone here ever got queens to mate in captivity. Because I believe I might have. Here's the story, I was walking in a more southern part of CO springs. And i had a shovel with me. After walking up a path and accidentally stepping in poison ivy, i found an anthill. it was very close to nuptial flight so all the elates were at the top of the nest. i decided to dig up the anthill and found two Lasius queens. which i assumed weren't mated because they had wings and were in a nest with ants. since I have never seen a polygynous Lasius[i/] colonies. and when i put two of the queens in the same test tube because they were from the same colony (turned out to be a bad decision. after the fact.). I also found a male ant (which i assumed to be a Lasius[i/] male. I was right) i then put the male in and it died a day later. And 2 weeks after that i found one of the queens dead with both of it's wings on and the other with no wings. now, a week later the queen has eggs and larvae which are incredibly small so i assume they are worker's larvae. So now i believe that I have mated a queen in captivity. otherwise, what else could have happened. :D


Well, Sometimes infertile queens will still lay eggs (like chickens) except for the eggs do hatch-- Into useless male drones. So that could be what happened.

Re: Mated queens

Posted: Fri Oct 13, 2017 11:08 pm
by Dearth335
no, she has workers now

Re: Mated queens

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2018 4:53 pm
by AntsDakota
I've gotten them to mate in a container.

Re: Mated queens

Posted: Fri Jul 13, 2018 10:27 am
by antnest8
this has been done before but it is rare and hard to do.

Re: Mated queens

Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2018 9:20 pm
by antsRlife
ive gotten them to mate when a male was trying to climb onto the queen :lol:

Re: Mated queens

Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2018 8:59 am
by Hunter36o
And this has now become the perfect place for my question. Except it's for Myrmica. But okay so as we know Myrmica Rubra are very happy if having tones of queen's per nest. However I recently read due to this they actually do not live that long at all. 2 - 4 years :( now I have 2 Myrmica with a small change one is actually ruginodis and nor Rubra so I was wondering would it be possible as a new an ant keeper in my country who has Myrmica Rubra, if I knew another, could we be creative and make a mating dome?

The idea for this and I have no idea if so wine has tried this before but if I were you make a mini super dome roughly 3ft in diameter with 2 connect points, one for each keepers colony. Could we, during their flight season induce a mating frenzy between the two colonies?

Now a lot of serious design will have to go I to this to stop the workers from mixing and ensuring the alates only make it there yada yada. Would the concept work? So they have biology telling them it's that time of the year as it does with captive conies but they lack the pheromone scents to go fly. What if this dome I mentioned allowed these scents to pass from one colony to the other leading them to the "mating dome"

I would like to hear people's thoughts on this as it is something I am always thinking about as I think not only would it benefit the colonies but it could also open up a hole new door for ant keeps particularly those with multi queen species???

Re: Mated queens

Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2018 5:50 pm
by AntsDakota
They will mate in a container if it's in nuptial flight only. Almost no exceptions. So if you catch queens and males that are boiling out of different nests and put them in a container, there's a much better chance they'll mate than if you catch them before nuptial flight.

Re: Mated queens

Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2018 2:07 pm
by AntsDakota
Make that before and after nuptial flight.