The AntsCanada Ant Forum's

Hi! I'm from Quebec, Canada and I'm new to ant keeping. I caught a queen in a nest I found in the woods, I think she is a black garden ant. I didn't think to take some of her workers. She has laid eggs and I was wondering if I have to feed her ? I know that some species don't need feeding before the first workers but she's not a new queen, so I'm not sure what to do.

Thanks for the help!

If she’s not a new queen, she definitely needs to be fed. The reason new queen ants don’t need to be fed, is because they metabolize their wing muscles after breaking off their wings. This queen has already done all of that and no longer has any wing muscles to metabolize. You definitely should’ve taken some workers with you as it would’ve definitely helped her, but hey, hindsight is 20/20. But anyway, yes definitely feed her, and I hope you’re successful!

Thanks a lot! I got some meal worm and honey, I'll try feed her that.

Hey I was wondering on this topic what would happen to a wild queen taken from an established nest? Does her maternal instincts kick in like she was just mated for the first time minus the need to feed on actual food this time round? Would being fed by her daughters have had an effect on a queen in terms she did not really have to do any work the last while?
Also would being taken from her colony on her own freak her out? Like if we were randomly plucked from our family. It would leave serious trauma to our minds... I hope these are not stupid questions..

Okay i am sorry but i have one more question. So hear me out. I started thinking about the colony who's queen just got taken from them out of no where and thought yeah surely they will unfortunately pass away without a queen right?
So right this is were i kinda went outside the box here.. say this is all happening when nuptial flights are going on and this colony is at the stage wer alates are present. If by some really weird miracle of a chance a mated queen came back to this nest that no longer has her mother. Would she get away with it? Now I know the odds of this actually happening is like 0.001% but thinking about it for me she has not gone and made her own colony scent yet. Would it work?

It does make sense no?