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mpir: Myrmica rubra colony - 2 queens (25. Apr 2007 18:20)

Hi,

I have a colony of Myrmica rubra that contains 2 queens and 50+ workers and quite some brood. I've noticed lately that one of the queens is leaving the nest quite often. She also ventures out into the arena.

But today I witnesed strange event when the queen went out to the arena and it seemed to me that about half of the workers folowed her. I've never seen so much workers in the arena at any time. It seemed to me like as if they would like to split up into two colonies. I guess some of the workers didn't like this idea because what happend next was that some of the workers started carrying back to the nest other workers and also the queen.

I wonder if any of you have the same experience and what is the best thing to do in this case? Is it posible that a colony would divide into two different colonies and started war with each other?

JimmyVe: (25. Apr 2007 19:05)

I don't have experience with this.
I read something about it, it is in deed possible that the colony is going to split up. I don't think they are going to kill each other but I'm not sure about that. It is possible that they kill one queen.
Strange behavior. In nature there are sometimes colonies with more than 5 queens. But everything is possible. ;)

Skippy: (26. Apr 2007 12:08)

My Myrmica

Kale^^: (26. Apr 2007 14:21)

That is normal, they might try to split the colony, add another nesting with tube to the arena and they might ½ the colony and then you have 2 colonies =)


Lots of myrmica there. (in skippy's pic)

pphakkar: (18. Okt 2007 12:19)

Sound interesting. I had two (most likely) myrmica rubra queens, and when the other had few eggs, it started to attack the other queen, so I had to remove it from the nest.

4mykids: (18. Okt 2007 15:58)

Hi all, I found a large black colony that had about 14 Winged Queens in it. I seperated some of the Queens and put them into tubes that now have a few eggs in them - I left two winged Queens in with the large colony and the workers ripped the wings off of one of them and the two Queens now have seperated from one another into different parts of the aquarium and they have split the colony in half has mpir's have done.

Should I make two colonies and remove one?

mzfckr: (18. Okt 2007 17:12)

you are lucky 4mykids.14 queens...

4mykids: (18. Okt 2007 18:00)

thnx - I have had them for a few weeks now, no deaths yet. Only one of them have stripped their wings off so far.

mzfckr: (18. Okt 2007 20:37)

do u now what species?i cant see in the pictures

mpir: (19. Okt 2007 07:12)

My guess is that they are some Camponotus species. Meaning that the most of the queens will end up dead if you don´t split them. But that is just my guessing.


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