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Because i live in Michigan we have cold weather when California has 80 degree weather so i always have to wait so much longer than them for ant season. From this came me looking under rocks in the middle of winter. Their i found many lasius umbratus queens. now i have 2 one in a test tube by herself and one with 5 workers (the ones i will focus on).

Because L umbratus is a parasite i had to do several attempts to get the queens and host workers together. through many fails i finnaly had a success the queen now happily sits as head of this 5 worker colony. The only problem is i feed them well with honey dried meal worms, fresh meal worms and sugar water. all of them stay near the food but do not eat much. The biggest problem is the queen never lays eggs. I Think it is because i am over stressing her but still won't she think the workers will protect her?

Pics coming soon

The lasius umbras colony still has no eggs. i have gave them meal worms and honey. I wonder if the queen is infertile. Also a worker died (my guess old age)

also my good camera is lost so i have to find it for pics.

i found another queen and out her in with about 20-30 workers in a tube she killed 4 workers but i took away her hiding spot and she is now with the workers

here is the new colony



old colony


I have no idea why the queen and half of her workers are outside a perfectly open test tube


and finally a worker count (no brood to count)
old colony (if you want to help me name it go ahead)
workers: 4
Queens: 1

new colony (same with naming)
Workers: 20-30
Queen: 1

so finally the day has come when the lasius colonies outside stored brood under rocks so i dug up a chamber and put them in a plastic kitchen bowel with a barrier. it took a while but i finally got the brood from the ants and released the ants outside. now my old colony has about 10-15 larvae and the new colony has about 1-5 larvae. (i gave the old colony more because they accepted it easier.)

before this though and in between these posts i found one more queen and i thought it would be nice to have a natural set up and a natural introduction for the colony. so i dug up about 20 ants and put the queen and the dirt with ants in the setup. 3 days later i found the queen dead in the colonies garbage pile. i really with i could of kept them though. they made a maze of tunnels and even made the traditional ant hill. so i released them yesterday to the colony they came from.

the old colony moved in to a new test tube

Hello! It can take a while for Lasius social parasites to begin laying, and sometimes a part of that brood will actually be haploid eggs laid by workers (which develop into males.) Be patient, continue to provide fresh food, and things will likely turn out fine. I don't have much luck giving my Lasius anything but small arthropods like Drosophila flies or the ruinous Plodia moths that fly in my apartment.

My Lasius latipes queen got to her brood to the pupal stage after more than one year of captivity, but the cocoons look too big to be workers. I can only wait and hope for the best! Lasius umbratus seems to have a much easier time of it.

would they eat meal worms because that is all i'm restricted to right now.

I have comforted sight on eggs!
Thanks everyone for their help on the information and especially for batspiderfish's post about social parasites shown here
http://www.formiculture.com/topic/3252-much-ado-about-the-founding-of-lasius-temporary-social-parasites/

the new colony is doing great with several larvae (they ate a couple) lots of eggs and a pupae!

Update!!
The old colony now has lots of brood and is looking good with
1 queen
4 workers
10-15 larvae
and billions of eggs

The new colonies test tube has so many ants and dirt in it i cannot see if they have brood but they just got a refurbishment
1 queen
20+ workers
??? brood