The amazing story of a Formica colony
Moderator: ooper01
-
- Posts: 1283
- Joined: Sat Mar 17, 2018 4:22 pm
- Location: South Dakota
The amazing story of a Formica colony
I collected some workers from a Formica colony and put them with my Formica social parasite queen. I accidentally killed her while moving nests, and also killed the colony's own queen when I was collecting the workers. I felt so bad for the workers, who were now orphaned. I then took a queen a friend gave me and put 5 workers with her. They avoided each other and fought when they came in contact. Then I removed the workers and tried again with a Formica queen of a different species I caught a couple weeks ago. They started grooming her instantly. I then moved them from a test tube into an AC Formica Hybrid Nest 2.0 They had about 25 workers) and then introduced some workers of a different colony and the same species. I have mixed Formica workers of the same species before with no problems, but this time I believe the new workers killed the old workers and took the queen as their own. The new workers were all old workers, so I broke into a colony and stole pupae and larvae and brood boosted them. I didn't realize that the brood was of a different species. But workers started to emerge today and they are accepted into the colony, so I am not worried. The queen also is starting to lay eggs. Can you help me ID these ants when I get pics posted?
"God made every kind of wild beasts and every kind of livestock and every kind of creeping things;" (including ants) "and God saw that it was good." Genesis 1:25
-
- Posts: 1283
- Joined: Sat Mar 17, 2018 4:22 pm
- Location: South Dakota
Re: The amazing story of a Formica colony
The funny thing is that the queen still tends to brood while there are 30 or so workers around to do it for her.
"God made every kind of wild beasts and every kind of livestock and every kind of creeping things;" (including ants) "and God saw that it was good." Genesis 1:25
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 0 guests