Combining brood with another colony?
Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2021 7:23 am
Hi.
I am not sure if this is normal or not for ants.
So on feb 25th i got 2 queen ants in the mail. Their species is camponotus vicinus. They arrived in separate test tubes with their own eggs. I was very exited because i know one day they will be a massive thriving empire. I didn't want to wait so long for them to care for the eggs, wait for the larvae to hatch, then she has to feed the larvae, then i have to wait for the larvae to pupate, then i have to wait for the pupa to hatch, then i have to wait for the workers to be fully adults so they are not squishy and kinda gross looking. Plus they are carpenter ants and they take way longer for their babies to develop. So i gave one of the queens 4 mature larvae and 2 pupae from a different colony. The colony was not the same species as the lonely queen. I was mixing 6 babies from a different colony into this queen ants test tube. They were in the same genus tho. The colony i was extracting babies from was
camponotus flordanuis and the queen ant i was giving the babies to was camponotus vicinus. The queen ant grabbed the babies and actually accepted the pupae and the larvae. She started cleaning them and feeding the larvae.
This one was specimen 1. Specimen 2 rejected a pupae from the camponotus flordanuis colony. It surprised me to see that specimen 1 would accept babies from another colony. Not sure why specimen 2 did not accept any babies at all from a different colony. They both had the same amount of eggs and they both had young eggs. They had no larvae before I gave specimen 1 larvae and pupae.
Has this ever happened before?
Thanks, bugging3out
P.S. should I include a photo?
I am not sure if this is normal or not for ants.
So on feb 25th i got 2 queen ants in the mail. Their species is camponotus vicinus. They arrived in separate test tubes with their own eggs. I was very exited because i know one day they will be a massive thriving empire. I didn't want to wait so long for them to care for the eggs, wait for the larvae to hatch, then she has to feed the larvae, then i have to wait for the larvae to pupate, then i have to wait for the pupa to hatch, then i have to wait for the workers to be fully adults so they are not squishy and kinda gross looking. Plus they are carpenter ants and they take way longer for their babies to develop. So i gave one of the queens 4 mature larvae and 2 pupae from a different colony. The colony was not the same species as the lonely queen. I was mixing 6 babies from a different colony into this queen ants test tube. They were in the same genus tho. The colony i was extracting babies from was
camponotus flordanuis and the queen ant i was giving the babies to was camponotus vicinus. The queen ant grabbed the babies and actually accepted the pupae and the larvae. She started cleaning them and feeding the larvae.
This one was specimen 1. Specimen 2 rejected a pupae from the camponotus flordanuis colony. It surprised me to see that specimen 1 would accept babies from another colony. Not sure why specimen 2 did not accept any babies at all from a different colony. They both had the same amount of eggs and they both had young eggs. They had no larvae before I gave specimen 1 larvae and pupae.
Has this ever happened before?
Thanks, bugging3out
P.S. should I include a photo?