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yes they do some are darker than others.
I know a guy who kept Formica fusca in pairs as an experiment. In one case, the one queen upon the birth of workers did not slay the other, but simply threw her out of the test tube (she resided to a small rubber tube). The losing queen was put in her own test tube, and has laid her own eggs again and is doing fine. Whether L. niger might stop before bloodshed in some cases I do not know, but it's worth a thought..
The "blue line" you see, as you will have realized by now, is not a sign of illness - it's simply food being digested!
There are quite a few species where queens will pair (or more) up at the end of the nuptial flight, even if not true Polygn species, Lasius niger are not a species which will usually tolerate 2nd queens tho, most queens are fiercly terratorial even immediatly after nuptials have finished, while some species (eg. Camponotus) will force the 2nd/3rd/etc queens into other sections of the nest once the colony gets too large, often this will result in 2 or more cooperative colonies within one nest, assuming that food is abundant enough and the nest will hold them all. Formica, are often true polygn, so i would not be suprised to find them tolerating, or fully integrating with 2 or more queens, some formica workers (eg Formica rufa) will collect up mated queens and add them to the nest after each nuptial flight, resulting in colonies with millions of workers and hudreds of fertilized queens.
Some ants take this further, and form giant super colonies which spread for 10's of kilometers, for eg Linepithema humile
These experiments dont need to be done imo, there is allot of information about already on this subject, I think its just morbid curiosity, to be forcing unrelated, non-polygyn queens to live together, tbh.
i totally agree John.. Nice to see you back here mate :) :grin: