Because I’m a kid who is in the hobby by himself, I’ve had a lot of trial and error. This means I’ve had a lot of dead queens. But my queen yesterday was the hardest by far.
About a year ago, I was at my friend’s pool and I saw something hit the water. I immediately recognized it as a camponotus Pennsylvanicus queen. My friends mom was there and started splashing water over the ant (she’s not a big bug fan) I managed to get her into a snap cap vial and out of the pool, where I cleaned the chlorinated water off of her. When I gat home, I put her in a test tube set up and waited. It took a couple of MONTHS for her to start producing, and then a couple more for them to hatch, but a couple of weeks ago, she had two workers helping her out. I decided since she had plenty of brood and her worker ants, that I would put her in the nest. She didn’t go. She was waiting in the test tube for a week before I realized that she needed heat. I didn’t have a heating cable so I used a heating mat... directly on the test tube. In the morning I checked on them and was horrified to see her workers dead and her, on her back twitching. I had packed the cotton too much and it was too hot. I had suffocated and baked them at the same time. I quickly got her out and started testing her reactions. After a few hours of tending to her, she was revived. Sort of. She could only move her front pair of legs and her head. I doubted she would make it but I put her back in a test tube settup and waited. And after a week, she was COMPLETELY mobile! She was doing great! She just seemed slightly stiff in her legs. I named he Phoenix, because of her recovery.After a few day’s of her at her prime, I noticed she was getting more sluggish. And then the back of her abdomen shrank, and yesterday, I found her, laying still in her settup. In death curl.
I guess a Phoenix can only rise once.
That is my hardest loss.
Hardest Queen Loss
Moderator: ooper01
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Re: Hardest Queen Loss
Hey! I'm actually a 16 year old in ant keeping. I recently caught a Camponotus pennslyvanicus queen and have her in a test tube set up. I initially put half of her test tube over a heating pad but have since removed it, as this is the second time I've read of them hurting the queens. Did you ever come up with a way to heat the queens without heating pads? Or a way to use heating pads without hurting them?
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Re: Hardest Queen Loss
I don’t know, I think that it was suffocation that hurt them most and the fact that the whole tube was heated.
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