R3dFox: (16. Apr 2007 14:39)

Well all the ants are now dead.

Came home from college this afternoon and all of them are.

Is it normal for a colony without a queen to die so quickly?

I dont know what it could be. They had plenty of water, sugar water and even some food. But they all died. I dont know if its the heat or somthing?

JimmyVe: (16. Apr 2007 18:50)

If a colony loses there queen they all die. Most of the time this can take some weeks or months (depends on the size of the colony) These ants where probably in a bad shape after sitting in the sun to long.

sithmaster676: (16. Apr 2007 19:31)

sorry red but don't give up
ants shouldn't be kept in direct sunlight as the glass magnifies the heat and basically cooks them
Sithmaster676

Kale^^: (19. Apr 2007 20:38)

I felt really bad reading what happened to your Queen :( They should live some weeks/months after the queen dies, atleast for me they did.. Tough they were my first ants and there newer was queen.
I think there's a way to "install" the ants to a new queen but it is bit risky.. I use this trick:

Put them 2 minutes to a deep-freezer, then get them out for 30 minutes (they should come lively after 5-15 minutes, othervise they're dead)
Put them again in the freezer for 2 minutes and after that put them together with the queen, if they take the queen's smell they should accept her/queen accepts them. But this is risky for the workers & queen, because the workers might die in the freezer or they might kill the new queen.. So i think you should order few queens instead of risking it on 1 queen, you never know..

Cheers, Kale

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