Lasius umbratus founding...

[NorokVokun]

Okay i today found a queen that was given an ID as Lasius umbratus (social parasite) from a friend of mine but as he has never gotten the chance to keep them himselve he wasnt able to explain to me how to have her found WITHOUT sacrificing my Lasius niger collony...).

Is there a way for me to make it work without brood introduction (so ONLY worker introduction) or do i HAVE to brood boost her aswell (which would be a pain in the *** because i got no idea how i even would get the brood from the L. niger collony safely without escapees etc...).

If you need more information feel free to ask.

I REALLY want to make her succeed with her collony... she'd be my second selfcought queen and fourth overall collony.

Thanks in advance.

[kferman]

i wouldn't recommend using the lasius brood or the colony as a host colony because these queens seldom succeed in captivity anyhow. if you really want to raise a colony, i would recommend capturing a wild lasius colony and attempt using that one for the host colony, as this way you wont damage your captive colony of lasius niger.

[JoeHostile1]

This is everything you need to know about founding a social parasite. I’ve successfully founded Lasius claviger colonies. I just used a couple workers and some pupae for the introduction. But actually this year I had a claviger Queen lay eggs and she only had Neoniger workers present, no brood at all. So they may not even need brood, although this queen did have Neoniger brood last year so that may have something to do with it.

http://www.formiculture.com/topic/3252-much-ado-about-the-founding-of-lasius-temporary-social-parasites/