Help! Workers dying and a missing pupae.

[Danielculley]

I’m relatively new to ant keeping, I have only had my queen for a couple of months. I have a small colony of Camponatus Nicobarensis, I started out with just my queen and she produced 8 workers. She is continuously laying after slowing down for a while and seems really healthy. They are in a tube setup with fresh water and I have been giving them a little protein jelly now and again which I store in the freezer. Every now and then a tiny drop of honey-water. A week ago I discovered that one of my workers was “dead” in the test tube setup, I went to remove it and found that it’s antennae were still moving. So I left it for a while and then the next day found that it had in fact died so I removed it. Today I checked on my colony and discovered that another worker is now “dying” it’s back four legs are not working, only it’s front two are and it seems to be trying to drag itself around and stand up but keeps failing - I feel awful for it. The other thing that concerns me is that there was recently a pupa which looked at the stage where it is ready to become an adult and all of a sudden it just disappeared. So I’m now left with my queen, 6 healthy workers and a dying ant in the tube - but lots of healthy eggs and larvae. I feel a little lost and concerned. Can anyone advise me?

[antnest8]

i have no idea what it is since the problem can be many things. I would check for mold and mites first. next try feeding them differently, as for the missing pupae try not to stress them out.