Any ideas how to improve my ant queen condition

Discussions about the care and keeping of ants

Moderator: ooper01

Post Reply
throwaway
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Jan 11, 2020 7:25 am

Any ideas how to improve my ant queen condition

Post: # 66462Post throwaway
Sat Jan 11, 2020 7:35 am

Hi Everyone,

i've have a camponotus queen that i need advice on how to solve this issue.

My colony is around 2 years old now and early on i had around 6 workers, but they all slowly died off one by one in the test tube. Until i was left with just 1 worker before they hibernated, After winter passed the last worker died and its been 6 months since the queen has laid any new eggs.

i've moved her to several different test tubes and each test tube end up have black debris or mould appear on the cotton that is blocking the water. This would consistently appear every few weeks. is the queen using the cotton as her rest room?

And what should i do so that the queen will start laying eggs again.

Thanks guys in advance for any tips or suggestions.

Swirlysnowflake
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Dec 15, 2019 6:32 pm
Location: California

Re: Any ideas how to improve my ant queen condition

Post: # 66766Post Swirlysnowflake
Tue Jan 21, 2020 6:37 pm

After 2 years with Camponotus you only had 6 workers? Isn't that very few, even with Camponotus being slow growing? Im afriad your queen just might be... faulty :( :(

User avatar
antnest8
Posts: 1438
Joined: Tue Jan 02, 2018 2:11 pm
Location: Detroit, MI

Re: Any ideas how to improve my ant queen condition

Post: # 66782Post antnest8
Wed Jan 22, 2020 5:03 pm

I had this happen once with a camponotus colony when all 20 workers slowly died off to only the queen left. I continued to feed my queen and eventually she laid some new eggs.

Just make sure you feed her lots of protein, also remember that without larvae she can only have liquid protein (like insects). Also try giving her a fresh new test tube, That could help her.
Some of My Informative Sheets
https://forum.AntsCanada.com/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=19099
Includes :
  • Ant Care Sheets
    Queen Hunting
    How To Identify Ants
Goal is to become #2 poster on the forum

throwaway
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Jan 11, 2020 7:25 am

Re: Any ideas how to improve my ant queen condition

Post: # 66936Post throwaway
Thu Jan 30, 2020 5:47 am

Thanks for the protein idea i've tried feeding her mealworms which i've cut up into little segments however it seems she just ignores them and in fact actually puts them right on the cotton blocking the water.

Just wondering how were you able to feed the queen protein and how long did you feed her and how often before she started laying eggs.

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 24 guests