The AntsCanada Ant Forum's

this was wrote quick so sorry if bad writing) on june 4 i picked up my friend to watch basketball with me. then we deicided to pick our other firend up we came to his house but he already haad a friend so we took both.

on the way to my house the friend that was with my other friend (Ben) said he kept ants too. i wanted ants but i sucked at finding ants so i didnt have one. he said he had a few colonies and was willling to give me one. This ant waqs found in their garden the night before they were gonna buy 1(lived in jar). he brought it with them to the dealer just cuz and he said that queen nedded a bit of mealworm and suger water . whitch i found strange and he did to cuz i think your supposed to not need to feed it at these times( queen with eggs) but Ben and i decided to listen to him and so i fed it 1ce a week and i was recently on vacation and my mom had to feed him. i told her how to feed but she did horrible. she got the worm but she didnt use the eye dropper for the sugar water she just used edge of cup and she said she took most of the water out. it sounded good but then she asked what the eggs looked like. i told her and she said she miiiiiigght of washed it away with the sugar water.

i got home an hour ago to find out. and the jar was egg fre and now im here. can she lay more eggs ang get over this or is she useless and wont lay more eggs? please answer quick and thanks for reading this horrible grammar and spelleing misstakes.

It is possible that the queen may have only laid a portion of her eggs, and if that is the case then she could lay some more. However, if she has laid all her eggs, it may be difficult to keep her alive long enough to lay more. In the wild, the queen lays her first batch of eggs, feeds them with her body fat, (I think,) then the eggs hatch, and her first workers, nanatics (is that how you spell it?) go get the queen food. How long have the eggs been there?

What species is the ant?
This is pretty important as there are queens that do not need food during founding (Lasius, Camponotus) and queens that do need food (like Myrmica and ponerine queens).

Usually it's not that bad when a queen looses her first eggs. You can offer her a small drop of sugar water and a (very) small dead spider or fruit fly if she's having issues. As long as she's still in founding mode she can still lay a new batch of eggs and raise her first workers.
Queens only loose the ability to care for their brood (and themselves) once they are past the founding stage (like when they have raised 10-20 workers).
Your queen should be fine and have no issue raising a new batch of brood.

it is some type of carpenter ant the gan gut said so camponotus which is strange cuz he wanted me too feed it

Will you post pictures? This doesn't exactly sound like Camponotus.

Martialis wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 15, 2017 12:48 pm

Will you post pictures? This doesn't exactly sound like Camponotus.

i dont know how

Vaporeon189 wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 15, 2017 3:13 pm

Martialis wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 15, 2017 12:48 pm

Will you post pictures? This doesn't exactly sound like Camponotus.

i dont know how

This video should help. %5BURL2%5Dhttp%3A//forum.AntsCanada.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=162[/URL2]

This just cements my opinion that GAN is an awful piece of crap with people selling ants when they have no idea how to keep ants in the first place.

Camponotus queens do not need food during founding but they need a lot of time undisturbed. If you disturb them too much (like by flooding their test tube with sugar water) they will eat/recycle their eggs cause they do not consider the place safe.

Camponotus take between 4-6 weeks (smaller species) and 2-3 months (larger species) from egg to worker. It's best to put her in a dark spot (best is between 20 and 26°C) and forget about her for at least 4 weeks.


This is a really good video about Camponotus ants, their traits and their habits:

Serafine wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 15, 2017 3:19 pm

This just cements my opinion that GAN is an awful piece of crap with people selling ants when they have no idea how to keep ants in the first place.

Camponotus queens do not need food during founding but they need a lot of time undisturbed. If you disturb them too much (like by flooding their test tube with sugar water) they will eat/recycle their eggs cause they do not consider the place safe.

Camponotus take between 4-6 weeks (smaller species) and 2-3 months (larger species) from eggs to worker. It's best to put her in a dark spot (best is between 20 and 26°C) and forget about her for at least 4 weeks.

ok but im still not sure what species but we think it is carpenter. let me check for a 100% with my internet powers

Just make a picture and upload it to a site like http://imgur.com/.