Problem with Messor Barbarus colony

[UnrealSparks]

Hi everybody,
I wanted to ask some opinion regarding one of my Messor Barbarus colonies.
It all started in May where I got my first Messor Barbarus colony (let's call it Colony A) and then in June my second one (Colony B).
Since then I always threated them equally (gave them the same food, watered their nest, cleaned their garbage twice a week, kept at the same temperature, and so on...).

Colony A has grown exponentially in the last months, going from about 25 workers (when I first got them) to an amazing 150+ workers (including many majors) and with very few losses (about 2-3 workers in the last two months).

On the other hand Colony B has always had problems... there were about 30 workers when they arrived but they have grown very slowly compared to the other colony. I also noticed some of the workers tended to die very easily and there were only minors. Even today there are a few media workers but absolutely no majors or even sub-majors (and there are about 50-60 workers). And today when I checked in their nest I found out 20+ dead workers in their garbage site!
Oh, and lately they also started refusing proteins in almost any form (mealworms, crickets, protein jelly...).

Could there be any explanation to this situation? May the colony be genetically weak?
I also checked Colony A today and no sight of any dead worker.
(If you need any photo of their current setup or other stuff feel free to ask)

[Alexander]

Hi i also have two colonys of messor barbarus, they are both 1 year old but their groth rates are completly diferent (they are keep in the same conditions) one of the colonys has about 200 workers and the other has only 50 i dont know why this happens but the smaller colony keeps loosing workers and for every new worker another dies!

Can you send some picks of your set up so we can see if there is something wrong pls

[UnrealSparks]

Here are some photos of Colony B setup:





- As you can see they have two places to drink water from (the water trough and a test tube) so water is not their problem.
- Their nest is not super moist (I water it a bit every 3-4 days) considering Messor Barbarus prefers drier conditions, but I make sure where they keep their brood there's some higher levels (brood is in the second image in the low-right corner.
- They have plenty of seeds (canary seeds) in their nest, and from yesterday I found some empty ones in their garbage pile (so they surely can open them).
- One other thing I noticed is some more dead workers (about 3-4) today and even a dying one already been brought around by an other worker but while still being alive... (what are they doing?)

If you need more specific details just ask.

[Alexander]

Everything seems ok anthouse formicariums are pretty good so its not about the set up

[UnrealSparks]

I know it has been a while but I wanted to point out an observation about Colony B.
Since the last time I cleaned their garbage site (like 5/6 days ago) I've seen no seed shells while at the same time Colony A has been throwing away about 40 seed shells in this period. So I'm asking myself... could they be struggling with opening seeds inside their nest? Because they don't have any particularly large member in the colony.

[UnrealSparks]

Maybe this could be helpful to somebody in the same situation as I've finally found out the problem!
I wasn't watering their nest often enough! Even tough colony A was doing great even without much water, colony B was struggling a bit more.
So now that I water them daily I noticed 0 casualties in the past 3 weeks and they're finally producing bigger larvae!!
Even their garbage site has started filling much faster with emptied seeds and insects exoskeletons.