First workers died

[BeaverCleaver]

TLDR I'll post short version of what's going on after explanation.

Got out of the hobby for a couple years after my fire ant colony got out of control and had to relocate it. I had completely forgot about ant keeping.

One day I was sitting on my porch however, and my favorite species of queen crawled right across my shoe! A black crazy ant queen (I believe?) I picked her up and scrambled around to find my old test tubes but couldn't find any as we were remodeling the house and everything was packed away.

Ended up getting her in a set up using a pill bottle, the water ran out quick but it worked and she raised her first nanintics! There were 5 of them.

The test tubes I ordered finally arrived so I tried to transfer the founding colony to a real test tube that had a sustainable water source. The pill bottle and tube didn't match up of course, so I tried shaking them into the tube and using q tips to transfer them. Sadly I accidentally killed 4 of them and wounded the 5th who ended up dying just a few minutes after the transfer..

My queen however, was uninjured and thrived. She actually ended up laying 8-12 more eggs. I put a pin head of sweet jelly in the new test tube to maybe give her a boost, but she hasn't touched it.

My question is: If a queen looses her nanintics, yet still lays eggs, will the colony still come to be? The eggs are spread out around her, not clustered under her like they would be if I didn't accidentally kill her founding colony

[Antloverhuman]

She will not be able to start a colony without some food. Try feeding her small drops of honey of insects every week. Then it will most likely work

[Kenechirino]

Give her all kinds of sweet stuff
If she doesn't like jelly then maybe use sugar water


Also for some reason liquid vitamins also work but idk if its safe
Just wait it out she will eventually feed

[AntsLuxembourg]

Well I would say that she is currently stressed which explains the cluttered eggs. Second, giving her all sorts of sweets sounds odd. I imagine you (Kenechirino) throwing like 10 different kinds of Haribo candy at the queen to see if she likes any of it. haha.
Third, give her some insect parts. Leave her in a dark spot where she is undisturbed and wait for about 3 days. She needs to rest some and calm down. After this put half a mealworm or some other insect parts in the testtube. If you don't have any, you can try and give her a small piece of soft boiled egg white. Preferably not fried in a pan but boiled in a pot with hot water for 5-6 minutes. She needs protein for the larvae and she may have run out of wing muscle soup after the first workers had emerged.

Let me know if you need more.

[BeaverCleaver]

The Queen ended up dying! She refused to eat any food at all. I put a small portion of crushed meal worm, pinhead of jelly, and a pinhead of sugar water in her tube to chose from and left her alone with it for a week.

Came back to her on her back with a shriveled gaster and none of the food was touched. I'm sure if atleast one of the nanintics would've survived me transferring tubes, she would've been fed and just fine.

Her gaster seemed thin since I first got her, almost flat instead of round. So she may have had a parasite or ailment to make her not want to eat I'm really not sure.

Welp, here's to trying again next nuptial flight! I really hope I can catch another black crazy ant queen, I've only seen one in the years that I've been interested in the hobby. Atleast I have plenty of actual test tubes now so if I have to transfer the new ones there will be no casualties on my behalf with a portal!

[AntsLuxembourg]

Welp, here's to trying again next nuptial flight! I really hope I can catch another black crazy ant queen, I've only seen one in the years that I've been interested in the hobby. Atleast I have plenty of actual test tubes now so if I have to transfer the new ones there will be no casualties on my behalf with a portal!

I'm sorry to hear that it didn't work out. :C
It can happen and even if you didn't have her for very long, you gained a lot of experience already. That is what you should take away from this.
If you want you can check with the GAN Team for a GAN Farmer in your Area so you can get the same species if available or you get a colony that you like.