ANTSTORE World of Ants

[jxyong87]

Has anyone had experience with adoption of queens into mature colonies?

[UneXisted]

My colony of <2500 workers rejected a third queen for some reason. At first instance they accepted her. A few weeks later she was dead. I am not sure if it was the adopted queen. I give you the advice to mark the queen before letting her adopted.

[Creature]

For wich species do you want to know? Pheidologeton usually accepts new queens very fast. They are polygyn. But other species might be harder

[baumarkthammer]

Pheidologeton diversus can be pushed with queens as much as you want. But there are some subspecies of diversus, when you put a queen in of an other subspecies it will be killed or accepted and later killed.
But mostley they are accepted even though since Pheidologeton in general and mostly diversus accept queens and workers very easy.

[Mikey_Bustos]

Yes, it works with Formica fusca, but the workers need to be queenless for a few days and the queen needs to be workerless for a few days, as well.

Here's a video of one such instance: Hyperlinks sind nur für registrierte Nutzer sichtbar

[jxyong87]

Thanks all for the replies. Sorry for the ambiguity, I am refering to queen adoption in Ph. Diversus.

The reason why I asked was because it is Ph. Diversus season in Singapore now (warm, rainy and humid), and to date I have captured 17 newly mated queens over the last few nights. I also found 4 queens who had established young colonies. 3 of these young colonies were found under a huge slab of rock, and 1 was under the root of a tree. They were all about 50-75m away from a mature colony, and had about 25-50 workers each and some brood.

I have done some experiment with them and obtained interesting observations:

experiment 1 - adoption of single queen into queenless colony

I baited and captured 4 mini colonies of about 1000 workers each from a mature colony. I let them settle into their new homes for about 18 hours. Next I then froze them at 5-7degC (our tempterature in Singapore is approx 29-32 degC) for approx 2 hours. After returning the colonies to room temperature, I immediately introduce a single queen to each colony - 2 newly mated queens, and 2 queens from each of the newly founded colonies I had found (I did not put any of thier workers or brood in). Here are the results:

For the queens with newly founded colonies, the workers immediately began acting aggressively toward the queen. They were biting the queens everywhere, legs, attena etc, the soldiers were aggressive too, they didnt bite her, but surrounded her and opened their jaws wide. Then they started pulling their queens downwards, as if they were trying to pinv her down. This went on for at least 4-5 hours. The queens did not really struggle. At T+6 hours, when I checked back, the mood suddenly changed - one by one the workers started letting go. The soldiers also started becoming protective of, instead of aggressive toward the queens. It seems that they had there and then decided to adopt her. Now, it has been more than 4 days since adoption, and both queens are doing well. They have both also laid a huge pile of eggs. I have further introduced an extra 1000+ workers from the same mature colony outside to one of the colonies and the new workers immediately accepted their new queen (presumably becuase the queen has adopted the workers' smells).

For the newly mated queens, by this stage both of them had started laying eggs before they were introduced to their new colonies. After introduction, the workers seemed very happy to adopt their new queens - no biting, no aggression, no struggling. The funny thing is, 4 days post adoption today, they both have not laid a single egg. In fact, one queen has died :S

experiment 2 - founding of new colony by multiple queens
I used 12 newly mated queens for this experiment - 2 groups of 3 queens (called 3A, 3B), 3 groups of 2 queens (called (2A, 2B, 2C). I filled a jar of mosit clay-soil mixture for each group and placed the queens in, then placed the jars in a dark room. Here are the results

T+12 hours
2A, 2B - all queens were injudred, dying. clearly they fought. there were broken legs, one broken abdomen :S not a good sight - experiment discontinued
2C - both queens appeared to have made SEPERATE nests, one on each side of the jar
3A - same result as 2A & 2B, but 1 queen has burrowed and made her own nest
3B - very interesting, all 3 queens have burrowed made 1 nest together

T+5 days - I have decided today to open up all their nests and see what is going on:
2C - very interestingly, it seems like both queens met somewhere along the way when burrowing in the jar. they decided to make a combined nest with a huge lump of eggs
3A - the 1 queen who made her own nest died in her nest she had lost half a leg. no eggs visible
3B - it looks like a 2 V 1 fight occurred, 2 queens were feasting on one queen. they had also laid some eggs. i can't be sure, maybe the queen died and the other 2 decided to cannibalize her? :S

Anyone cares to comment on the observations?

In my opinion, the result in experiment 1 can be explained by that fact that the workers constantly groom their queen and hence she adopt their smell. Thus in the newly mated queens who have no smell, the workers were willing to adopt them quickly. Whereas the queens of the newly founded colonies had smells and the workers were aggressive toward them initially. But probably through intereaction and constant contact, the queens adopted the new workers smells and they begin to become acceptive towards her.

Regarding experiment 2, anyone cares to comment?

[UneXisted]

Very interesting observation. Regarding observation 1, I have done the same. I had a colony with 2000 workers and 2 queen and tried to let the colony adopt another queen. When i placed the third queen in the basin, there was 1 minute of aggressiveness, but after that one minute they seem to have adopted her. They were forcing her to the nest. But 1 or 2 months later there was a death queen in the arena. I am not sure which queen it is. I forgot to mark all the queens. But i think it was the adopted queen.