Yesterday, I was at a tennis court by my house and I found a queen. I was about to put her in a container and put her in a test tube when I get home but I saw another one... and another other... and another one. I was right in the middle of a nuptial flight swarm. I might have gotten a little too excited because when I'm done catching them I ended up with a container full of ant queens numbering to about 20
Right now, I have them in a test tube set up individually.
I will post a picture later but based on some looking around at AntWiki the closest I can identify them with is a Solenopsis Lou simply because it is the closest I could find by Mauritania that is listed at the site.
It looks very identical to a Solenopsis Molesta but I'm not sure if that species is native here.
Assuming all 20 of the queens I caught are fetilized, I don't think I can maintainn that much colonies if they get to a certain size.
One of the plan I have is to perhaps merge multiple queens into a test tube setup before they start laying eggs assuming that they are a polygonous species.
Has anybody here had any experience raising a polygonous ant colony?
What do you think would be the ideal number of queens I should put into a test tube?
I"m probably being ambitions but I'm thinking of putting about 10 queens into a large test tube that way if all 10 of them lay eggs, their first generation of nanitics would explode to atleast about 50 or more and I can move them into a formicarium right away.
Here's a video I saw on youtube of a Solenopsis Molesta in a test tube setup with 2 queens.