New ant keeper looking for help

Discussions about the care and keeping of ants

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Faded1
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Jun 23, 2019 11:01 pm

New ant keeper looking for help

Post: # 59757Post Faded1
Sun Jun 23, 2019 11:05 pm

I caught my first queen ant (Carpenter ant) in April. She had wings and almost ran her over with my bike while taking my dog for a walk. She laid eggs sometime in the first two weeks in a test tube set up. There were six eggs. It's now June, she has one larvae and it's pretty much the same size as she is and two maybe three eggs. I'm assuming she ate the other two eggs. I only check on her about once every two weeks. At the most every ten days. There is a little mold on the cotton ball by the water in her test tube set up but it doesn't seem to bug her. I'm concerned that she ate two eggs and two, that the queen I captured might have been running from a mature nest because her larvae is legitimately the same size as she is. I could be worried about nothing but I wanted to post here to find out.

Shinde
Posts: 18
Joined: Wed Jul 17, 2019 4:03 am
Location: Michigan

Re: New ant keeper looking for help

Post: # 61399Post Shinde
Wed Jul 24, 2019 12:39 am

Faded1 wrote:
Sun Jun 23, 2019 11:05 pm
I caught my first queen ant (Carpenter ant) in April. She had wings and almost ran her over with my bike while taking my dog for a walk. She laid eggs sometime in the first two weeks in a test tube set up. There were six eggs. It's now June, she has one larvae and it's pretty much the same size as she is and two maybe three eggs. I'm assuming she ate the other two eggs. I only check on her about once every two weeks. At the most every ten days. There is a little mold on the cotton ball by the water in her test tube set up but it doesn't seem to bug her. I'm concerned that she ate two eggs and two, that the queen I captured might have been running from a mature nest because her larvae is legitimately the same size as she is. I could be worried about nothing but I wanted to post here to find out.
Unfortunately, it sounds like your queen might not be fertilized! An unfertilized queen can still lay eggs, but they will develop into only males, which is why the larva is as big as she is. She probably ate the eggs in order to feed the huge larva.

Hawkeye
Posts: 1557
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2019 4:38 pm
Location: Almelo

Re: New ant keeper looking for help

Post: # 61539Post Hawkeye
Thu Jul 25, 2019 8:06 am

Faded1 wrote:
Sun Jun 23, 2019 11:05 pm
I caught my first queen ant (Carpenter ant) in April. She had wings and almost ran her over with my bike while taking my dog for a walk. She laid eggs sometime in the first two weeks in a test tube set up. There were six eggs. It's now June, she has one larvae and it's pretty much the same size as she is and two maybe three eggs. I'm assuming she ate the other two eggs. I only check on her about once every two weeks. At the most every ten days. There is a little mold on the cotton ball by the water in her test tube set up but it doesn't seem to bug her. I'm concerned that she ate two eggs and two, that the queen I captured might have been running from a mature nest because her larvae is legitimately the same size as she is. I could be worried about nothing but I wanted to post here to find out.
Have you fed her at all? Try offering a drop of honey and or some insect parts for protein.

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