New Camponotus Queen

[ragingbananas]

This afternoon I was able to catch my first queen. I’m pretty sure its a Camponotus Queen, though I admit with me being a new as I am I may has misidentified it. My first concern is on the “Newness” of this queen. Here are reasons why I believe that she is fertile and that she has not yet founded a colony.

• I found her in a hole in a log that has no rear exit. The depth of the hole is the queens body length x2

• she was making the hole deeper and would return from the rear of the hole every 30 second or so with wood shavings, so it seems that she was burrowing deeper.

• There where no other ants in the hole with her

There are some odd circumstances surrounding this that makes me doubt my first conclusion. These are:

• There where two Smaller Workers that appeared to be guarding the hole. In fact these two ants are the reason I found her.

• The two workers did not in anyway appear aggressive towards this queen.

This tree was covered in holes. I found maybe a total of 7 workers or so going foraging around the tree. After looking around though these other workers did appear to be part of a nearby colony, with holes maybe 2 to 6 inches from the hole belonging to the queen that I found. Is it possible that a new queen would create a burrow so close to an existing colony? Is this queen somehow the queen for the nearby colony?

I found the other colony because I was digging into log and stumbled onto one of its chambers complete with brood. Based on the chamber I opened and the amount of brood I did find my guess is that this other colony is anywhere from a few hundred to 1000 strong. Did I somehow remove the existing colonies Queen. I find it odd that an existing queen would be in such a hole and not under guard deeper in the colony.

[AntsAreAwesome]

I do know that sometimes queens will try and start colonies right next to existing ones. However, the fact that the workers were with the queen seems to make me think that she already has a colony. Did you find any brood? Did you take her with the two workers and brood? Maybe somebody more experienced can give you more info.

[ragingbananas]

I Did take 5 workers but there was no brood in her Hole/chamber. i'm reluctant to combine them until i know that they wont kill her.

i was removing sections of the log some distance away from her chamber. this is how i found the rest of the colony. there was brood there but the workers quickly removed it. i was not able to get any brood.

Also the workers where there only for about 5 min or so. they left shortly after i arrived. i was there for a good 2 hours trying to get her to come out. no ants returned to her hole