Workers killed queen

[BeaverCleaver]

I have a lasius queen with 5 workers that's decided to stop laying eggs since her nanintics.

I decided to do some more anting even though I know it's really late in the season. I flipped a small rock and found a medium sized colony of crematogaster with a bunch of brood. Under another small rock under the bigger one, I found the queen of the colony.

I tubed the queen, then filled 3 other tubes with workers and brood. Got home and placed the workers and brood in a small AC ant tower, blocked one entrance, then attached the queens tube to the tower on the other entrance portal.

The workers scrambled around hiding the brood in the soil that I picked them up in that was added to the tower. I put a sock over the attached tube with the queen in it, hoping that they would find the queen and move into the tube for now. Slowly but surely, one worker went in, then two, then 3.

All of a sudden the queen comes running out of the tube into the tower and she has 3 workers grabbing her legs. 4 more run in and get on top of her spraying with formic acid and biting.

I separated the tube from the tower, plugged the exit up, and managed to wrestle the workers off of her with tweezers without damaging her at all. I'm pretty sure the formic acid will be the demise of her, as she seemed really crippled once she was by her self.

My question is why.

Why would workers turn on their own queen? This was 100% their queen, I literally watched her and the same workers in peaceful harmony right before I tubed her.

[antperson24]

I have a lasius queen with 5 workers that's decided to stop laying eggs since her nanintics.

I decided to do some more anting even though I know it's really late in the season. I flipped a small rock and found a medium sized colony of crematogaster with a bunch of brood. Under another small rock under the bigger one, I found the queen of the colony.

I tubed the queen, then filled 3 other tubes with workers and brood. Got home and placed the workers and brood in a small AC ant tower, blocked one entrance, then attached the queens tube to the tower on the other entrance portal.

The workers scrambled around hiding the brood in the soil that I picked them up in that was added to the tower. I put a sock over the attached tube with the queen in it, hoping that they would find the queen and move into the tube for now. Slowly but surely, one worker went in, then two, then 3.

All of a sudden the queen comes running out of the tube into the tower and she has 3 workers grabbing her legs. 4 more run in and get on top of her spraying with formic acid and biting.

I separated the tube from the tower, plugged the exit up, and managed to wrestle the workers off of her with tweezers without damaging her at all. I'm pretty sure the formic acid will be the demise of her, as she seemed really crippled once she was by her self.

My question is why.

Why would workers turn on their own queen? This was 100% their queen, I literally watched her and the same workers in peaceful harmony right before I tubed her.

Maybe since you kept them separately she took on a new sent, and the workers thought she was not their queen, thus they killed her. I can't say for sure what happened, but I think there is a high likelihood that this is what happened.

I hope this helps.

[BeaverCleaver]

The queen ended up surviving, I don't know that she'll be able to found another colony from scratch but we'll see.

[antperson24]

The queen ended up surviving, I don't know that she'll be able to found another colony from scratch but we'll see.

Cool, that will be interesting!