Multiple Queens Housed Together

[Ruslan19]

Hey everyone. I have recently started my pursuit of ant keeping, having just collected my first few queens this last month. The most interesting thing happened just a few days ago and I need some advice. I got a summer job in the lumber department at Home Depot and as I was moving delivered lumber into the building I uncovered what looked like a small camponotus ant colony (camponotus pennsylvanicus I think though I could be wrong), but upon closer examination I realized they were all queens, with eggs, larvae, and pupae. No workers, so these are all probably new queens who just had their nuptial flights about a month or so ago. If I had found these guys under a log in the woods I would not have bothered them. But because they were in a pile of lumber that was going to be moved around and probably crushed as a result, I did my best to collect each queen (six of them) and their brood to take home. The interesting thing is that they were all nesting together despite not being a polygynous species. I might have misidentified them, but knowing that they are a larger camponotus species they shouldn’t be so calm nesting together. Even most of their brood was in the same pile. Right now I have them in a small container, with access to water from a test-tube set up, and they’re all sitting on top of each other all chill. No hostility, and I have a thousand questions. I read that camponotus pennsylvanicus are not polygynous but multiple queens can reside in a single colony together. While the workers are unlikely to fight the queens will be aggressive towards each other if they wander into each other's territory. Is this true? Should I separate them, and how since all their brood is mixed together? What should I house them in since this container is just temporary? I know how I would move them, according to AntsCanada’s videos, but again, should I? Any thoughts and advice would help.

Regards
Ruslan

[cheetawolf]

right now they are chill, but once a couple workers start coming they will definitely start killing eachother until 1 remains, you should move them into test tube setups asap!! dividing the brood is the difficult part, I would use a slightly wet cotton bud and slowly pick up brood and divide it evenly among them, its time consuming, but its ok

[Ruslan19]

Awesome answer, thanks! This makes sense. I do not know whose brood is whose though, does it matter since they're all probably covered in each other's pheromones?

- Ruslan

[cheetawolf]

It really doesn't matter, even if they do eat some of the brood, they can just use that energy to make more, if you are really worried that they arent laying eggs, you can give them a very small drop of honey

[Ruslan19]

Those are good points, they'll continue to lay eggs no worries there. I'll move them as you suggested into their own respective test-tubes and split up the brood. We'll have to wait and see what happens. Thanks you for your help and sharing your knowledge.