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Good news, he will send a replacement :D (for £10 postage). He says that the fungus and workers could be combined so I will try that.
excellent news.. lets hope they do much better this time :)
Great news Phasmid. I think you should be very careful about combining workers. Maybe take some of the fungus and give it to her first, then try gradually to introduce workers.
In deed, good luck. :)
You can combine with small workers, but kill all majors.
Well, so what happened, did you get the new colony and try merging it?
I was unsuccessful in the end.
The replacement did come about a month later, but by this time the fungus garden had become infested by the springtails, and there was only about 5mm cube of fungus left. A am not sure why the sringtails managed to get into the fungus, perhaps the combination of a population explosion (of spring tails) and gradualy fewer ants to guard it.
The replacemant was of good quality, the new queen was amazingly hardy. So the rest is my fault.
Desperate to get the colony going agian, I didn't clean the nest box properly and some spring tails survived. After a few days I noticed spring tails sitting on the fungus garden, which was now shared between the workers (held in their jaws). A few days later, almost no fungus visible and the old workers dieing off.
I then moved what was left into a tank of deep damp earth, so that the ants them selves had control over the conditions, and ordered new fungus from Antstore.
By the time this arrived there were no workers to dig a propper nest, the queen had survived with out fungus or workers now for weeks, turns out she is the toughest ant in the colony!
I made an artificial chamber in the earth which the new workers (from antstore's fungus) and the queen moved into.
Every thing seemed fine; the queen was being cared for by the workers and the fungus was growing. But too late, the queen died some time after the ordeal.
It is possible the colony could have been saved had the replacement arrived half a month sooner. But I realy I should have put them into the tank of earth whilst there were enough workers to dig a new nest.
Phasmid
Thanks for posting that. Very useful learnings for the rest of us.
Thanks, well at least you got a replacement colony.
Honest read, thanks phasmid