It was their 3rd year
Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2023 6:19 pm
My carpenter ant colony of 3 years just ended. The queen is dead
I had so much hope for them the last 2 years, always energetic and prolific and hungry for more food, but this year they just stopped feeding the queen. She left the tube to get her own food and I assume used all of her non wing muscle mass to produce eggs due to instinct or something, but those workers that are on the way are going to be left without a purpose.
This was the first colony I raised from a single queen, the second one I've had where the queen starved, and the third one I've had and killed. The only difference was that this time, I swear I did everything right. I even named her Onyx, after her beautiful shiny black exoskeleton.
I have two-ish questions I hope I can magically get an answer to here.
What went wrong? I assumed she somehow lost the colony scent due to mold or something because the workers refused to do trophallaxis with her or even stay by her side. They never fed her even after skeletonizing an entire small cricket from Petsmart. Could I have done anything to prevent this, other than somehow feeding her by hand?
The other question is what do I do with surviving ants? Two died around when she did, leaving 11 workers, 1 pupae, and a cluster of healthy larvae. I think I froze the last colony I somehow messed up, thinking it was humane for insects (I used to pin other insects this way). Should I continue to care for them until they die or something? That just seems wrong somehow. I'm sorry for the long post, I'm just confused about what to do.
I had so much hope for them the last 2 years, always energetic and prolific and hungry for more food, but this year they just stopped feeding the queen. She left the tube to get her own food and I assume used all of her non wing muscle mass to produce eggs due to instinct or something, but those workers that are on the way are going to be left without a purpose.
This was the first colony I raised from a single queen, the second one I've had where the queen starved, and the third one I've had and killed. The only difference was that this time, I swear I did everything right. I even named her Onyx, after her beautiful shiny black exoskeleton.
I have two-ish questions I hope I can magically get an answer to here.
What went wrong? I assumed she somehow lost the colony scent due to mold or something because the workers refused to do trophallaxis with her or even stay by her side. They never fed her even after skeletonizing an entire small cricket from Petsmart. Could I have done anything to prevent this, other than somehow feeding her by hand?
The other question is what do I do with surviving ants? Two died around when she did, leaving 11 workers, 1 pupae, and a cluster of healthy larvae. I think I froze the last colony I somehow messed up, thinking it was humane for insects (I used to pin other insects this way). Should I continue to care for them until they die or something? That just seems wrong somehow. I'm sorry for the long post, I'm just confused about what to do.