ANTSTORE World of Ants

[JenniferFrance]

I am not new to ant keeping but I have a problem... a rather big one.

I have a large Lasius niger nest about 200+ workers with about 40-50+ brood in various stages.
A week ago the queen died unexpectedly when waking from hibernation, for what reason I do not know, she was 3 years old and fit and healthy as far as I could tell.
I have two options

1...Let the colony slowly die out
2...introduce a parasitic queen

2 is my favoured option as I would not like to see my (and my queens) hard work gone to waste.

I have heard of Lasius umbratus but what other parasitic queens are suitable for Lasius niger? And what is the best way to introduce a queen to a large nest without her being killed on sight (or smell)
I heard putting 1 or 2 workers in with her so she can take their scent?
It needs to be an ant I can get preferably from this site if possible.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

[Markus]

Good news: even without queen, the ants may live some years as a sort of colony -
not a functional colony of corse, but they may live long enough to test various temporal social parasites!

My experience is, that it helps, when the ants are missing their queen for a long time,
I didn't test strategies like giving 1-2 workers to such a queen,
but simulating hibernation, for example in the fridge (right word?) with around 5°C,
the ants get less agressive and easier to infiltrate...

[JenniferFrance]

Hi Markus,
Yes fridge is the right word, its just trying to get my hands on a social parasite for Lasius niger that is proving tricky, any ideas where I may find one?

[Markus]

Well, my way would be walking outside, working in the Garden etc..
The last social parasite I found, run across my feed in front of our garage.

Well, that's the way, I would go,
those parasitic queens are not too bad to identify,
if you compare the pictures for example:

http://ameisenwiki.de/index.php/Datei:L ... _queen.jpg
http://ameisenwiki.de/index.php/Datei:DSCF4750.JPG

[derameisige]

Sounds good, however:
It's winter here as in GB, and no newly mated parasite queens stumble around in the snow.
Next time, JenniferFrance, you will have a chance to find Lasius umbratus queens will be between mid-June and mid-October, during the time when the species is swarming. End of July is peak time of swarming.
The orphaned colony will survive until then, though, and when queenless for such a long time the colony will probably be more ready to accept an alien, parasitic queen.

derameisige

[MichaelBiermans]

Hi Jennifer,

Sorry to hear you lost your queen.
That happened to me with my Messor when I had about 400-500 workers.
Ofcourse messors are even more difficult to "experiment" with.
Now my colony has deminished to 10-12 workers.
I've tried everything, introduce new queen while first in the fridge.
(Almost went wrong)
Then I put her in a small tube with a mesh so they can get the scent of the new queen withought killing her and I did that for over 2 weeks before I retried to introduce her in the colony.
Still failed even with scent masking lemon in the formicarium. etc etc

My conclusion is that with a colony that large it is virtually impossible to introduce a new queen parasitic or not.
There are just to many ants for the queen to fool in a to short time.
I would advise you to freeze about 10 to 20 workers until they stop moving, then get them out the freezer and put them with the parasitic queen.
They will slowly start moving/ waking up again wich means the queen has time to get them confused. and this also means that they cannot all get to the queen at the same time.
If that works (It has worked for me in the past) introduce all the brood of the colony. the workers will care for them and when they become workers they too will work for the new queen.

I suspect I have found a Lasius umbratus (I'm testing now)
There was only 1 queen in my queens catch from last year wich hasn't layed eggs by herself.
I've currently succesfully introduced a worker or two.
Now I'm waiting to see if she starts laying eggs.
If she does she will mostlikely be a Lasius umbratus or Lasius fuliginosus.
I'll post you if she is. You can have her and if you want to.


MichaelB

[JenniferFrance]

Thanks those are great tips, yes Ill need to wait till it is swarming season and I will keep a close look out. However I am concerned that I wont be able to spot the difference so easily.. are they slightly lighter to niger or are the mandibles slightly bigger to kill off the rival queen?.. slimmer perhaps? I just hope I can tell the difference.

last year I found a Lasius Flavius queen on my way home so I can but hope! But she died 5 days later..

And yes if you do find one please let me know, it would be great to try to introduce one to the colony using the tips you suggested, I would start very slow introducing a few cold workers... some brood if I can get to it, that may be tricky as they are in a very secure tank, wait till I have perhaps 10 workers accepting her before watching how she does in the main tank.
As you can see putting the entire colony in the fridge.. may not be easy.

The history is rather funny my daughter loves ants and I was always fascinated by them, of course my mother never allowed me anything like that. So on a summer day I realized the swarms were going to take place in a month or so and we started it as a summer project together.
Here are some pics.. from concept to now, my daughters design.



My daughter very excited on our new summer project


Taken today


We like to add a theme to the tank she was studying Egypt recently.


Chicken and clementine for dinner.