Uncletommy: Queen dead (9. Jul 2008 17:45)

My queen died yesterday and left behind about 20 workers, if i purxhased another one and put her into the old colony would they accept her?

Kale^^: (9. Jul 2008 18:08)

Sorry to hear about your dead queen.

What is the species? It depends on the species, if they will accept new queen easily.

Uncletommy: (9. Jul 2008 18:15)

L asius niger. about 2 weeks ago all workers were killed due to sunlight exposure, do you suppose this could be the cause of her death just a few weeks later? i thought she recovered because loads of cocoons hatched.

Kale^^: (9. Jul 2008 18:34)

That might be it. But you will never know for sure, it also could be something else. I think it is really hard, almost impossible to replace a lasius niger queen :(

Uncletommy: (9. Jul 2008 19:06)

thats s**t! I'm going to buy a new queen with a lot of workers, im tired of trying and failing to raise a colony from just a queen. What do you recommend? I want a larger species. something exciting!!!

Kale^^: (9. Jul 2008 20:36)

Buy some C amponotus species :) They are nice, big and agressive.

miszt: (9. Jul 2008 22:38)

Uncletommy, if you are having problems raising a colony from a Lasius niger queen, then something must be very wrong with your setup, they are by far the easiest to raise, and moving to another species with workers isnt going to help the situation, the colony will still fail if you havent got the basics they need, although other species may be easy to rear, there are few more adaptable that Lasius niger, and they can cope with some lack of experience in the keeper, many others cannot, and Camponotus imo are one of those

If you havent checked out my care sheet, I'd recomend you do, thats a good start, then get yourself a new colony, post some pictures and a diary explaining your setup, then maybe we can help pinpoint any possible problems :)

gabranth: (9. Jul 2008 23:22)

get a Myrmica rubra colony there very easy to look after and have multiple queens

miszt: (9. Jul 2008 23:39)

still isnt going to solve the problem, adding more queens and workers will not make a colony to survive if somethings wrong with the setup, it might last a few months longer if your lucky, but whats the point of that?

SteveUK28: (10. Jul 2008 09:02)

I agree with john on this.. You have to be able to maintain a colony of Lasius before moving on. If you cant keep Lasius then you have no hope of keeping a Camponotus or a Myrmica.