ANTSTORE World of Ants

[ducatiman]

I have a few Lasius niger queens that are going in to hibernation very soon, i was thinking of keeping one queen out of hibernation this winter and comparing the colonys progress against a fully hibernated colony to see if there is any noticable diffrence ,does anyone reading this think this would be crule or do you think it would be worth doing. Also has anyone done this ,if you have,please let me know how it went as it could save me a queen ant

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[SteveUK28]

From what i know.. I would not recommend it.. At all.. and im sure most ppl here will agree with me.

[kashmir79]

the difference will be a very slow developing Colony, and anyway, shel hibernate herself, its in her instinct, if you force her out of it , you could damager her life span and health and have a very weak colony

[The_Paranoid]

if you have more than one colonie and enough space it would be worth trying. I have a Lasius niger colony which only had 45 days hibernation last year and up to now no hibernation this year. They have brood all the time and i could not see any big problems like increased dying of workers. But they are very inactive... some ants go out for a walk but if they find something .. honey or insects, they start to eat but not very eagerly ... compared to other Lasius niger colonies of that size which would be really crowded at the food place, this colonie is somehow lazy ...

EDIT: @kashmir: in difference to Camponotus or Formica i couldn't see Lasius niger make any arangements for hibernation, they just keep going on with there normal work .. just being very lazy About the slow developing colonie ? Don't know ... I'd say that this colonie grows at the same speed as a "normal" colonie would. But had 3 to 4 months more to raise new brood than a normal colonie... so you could consider the growth to be slow.

But i think that none of these observations can be called significant or even valid. Therefore you would have to do this with a lot more colonies and for a longer time.

[JimmyVe]

Well they will be lazy like paranoid sad but not only that, the queen will not live that long. Lasius niger queens can live up to 30 years (in captivity) if you keep them out of hibernation it could be she lives only 10 years. The queen needs the hibernation to rest. So it would be a bit cruel yes. I think its always best to give them a hibernation if they need one.