Camponotus Pennsylvanicus eggs aren't hatching?

Questions from those who are just starting or considering getting into the ant keeping hobby. If you’re intimidated or confused by the in-depth posts of the other sections of this forum, feel free to post here, and we'll start from square one!

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JDSweetMeat
Posts: 25
Joined: Sat May 25, 2019 1:41 pm
Location: Centralia, Illinois

Camponotus Pennsylvanicus eggs aren't hatching?

Post: # 59425Post JDSweetMeat
Thu Jun 13, 2019 3:41 am

I captured 3 Camponotus Pennsylvanicus queens in a couple rotting logs a couple months back.

I'm fairly certain that the queens didn't have brood because I caught them early in their reproductive cycle (the queens from last year don't usually lay eggs until mid Spring).

All three are in standard test tube setups.

The first is my "star" queen. She laid 5 eggs about a month after catching her. However, none of them have hatched, and since then, she has laid about 6-7 more eggs. She has them all in a neat little pile and is constantly tending them and grooming them. They've been eggs for almost a full month now, so I'm worried there might be something wrong -- I was told it takes 2 months from egg to worker (about 2-3 weeks per stage). They've been eggs for 4 weeks and counting.

The next queen, Queen #2, has laid 5-10 eggs total, all within the last month or so, and with similar non-results.

The third queen has done nothing but cause trouble. She's been trying to chew the cotton off of her claustral chamber for a while now. I've had to replace it twice. I was wondering if it's possible that she didn't mate?

I mean, I've been checking on them once to twice a week, but I'm not sure if that would impact egg hatch time.

Attatexana
Posts: 56
Joined: Thu May 30, 2019 6:55 pm
Location: Houston, Texas

Re: Camponotus Pennsylvanicus eggs aren't hatching?

Post: # 59474Post Attatexana
Fri Jun 14, 2019 2:55 pm

First off stop checking on them so much it stress them out, second maybe it would be best to give each a fruit fly or cricket leg and maybe some fruit.

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