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Wildbird: Had a bit of a problem (30. Aug 2007 22:45)

Help Please
While I was away a well intentioned flat mate went to feed my Queen, she tipped my ikkle pet out of her test tube and added some water. I came home tonight and she got herself back in the tube but near the exit of the tube is a brown pile of what I assume is dead eggs and cocoons, I put some ant food at the end of the tube but she won't pass this brown mass, Am I ok to remove it??

Is there anything I can do to make her settle as she seems to be all over the place just roaming around the tube?

Also if she survives this shock will she go back to laying eggs?? I am hoping to get her some new workers before I have to hybernate her

Any advice please

Thanks

Paul

Kiam: (30. Aug 2007 23:13)

Can you tell me which queen it is if its a niger queen then it should survive the shock :) brown mass I think you can remove it ;)

Pugberto: (30. Aug 2007 23:18)

Maybe it soiled itself with fear :lol:

How many workers do you have?

miszt: (31. Aug 2007 00:38)

o no! :( she wuld have had enough for water in the test tube for at least another month!

very carefully, using a tiny amount of cotton wool and a pair of tweezer, try and soak up as much water as you can from the test tube (not the water that was there already), and gently dab the pile of eggs/coccons, they might survive :) give her a day to get over the shock and if she hasnt moved the eggs back then remove them and give her a tiny drop of honey, then after a day give her a dead insect, she'll soon be making eggs again, but if theres none left of her original brood i'm afraid you'v got another 2 months to wait for new workers

Wildbird: The good and the bad (31. Aug 2007 22:43)

Hiya and thanks for the advice,

I hated to distub her but i think I got most of the unwanted water out of the tube, the bad is that all of the eggs were mushy most were black or brown and as far as I can tell none survived................except for 1 tiny black worker running round her feet,

I added some antfood and tomorrow I will find a spider in the garden and boil it for 15 secs to kill the bacteria.

I am going to get another tube ready as the cotton wool plug is totally waterlogged and I wonder if it may begin the leak I will know by tomorrow.

If the plug is no good I will put the new tube end to end with the old one

i'll keep you posted, i'll try to post some pics so you can see

Many Thanks for the advice

Paul