ANTSTORE World of Ants

[damondeionno]

I don't think she would lay eggs if she had no food coming in.

I still believe that ants like this would be able to recover from damage to the garden. It's going to happen in nature sometimes. Rarely, but it must happen.

I'm not going to take a healthy Atta colony and experiment though.

[Phasmid]

She was laying eggs and then eating them.
Nest damage must happen in the wild but I doubt they would survive if so much of the garden was destroyed, they would have to fight off predators whilst trying to rebuild and the nest would be exposed to the elements.

[Phasmid]

The workers don't think its over. They have dragged the queen back into the nest and are still busy cutting rose leaves .

[damondeionno]

Perhaps you should keep them? That way if you get a new queen soon, perhaps you could give that colony the fungus from the old one, which might solve the problem you had before.

[Phasmid]

I am keeping them as they are still fascinating to watch, more so than Acromyrmex, for now (probably because there is a little voice in my head saying “omg this is Atta!” ).
They are still increasing the size of the garden now. I just had a good look at the garden and it is absolutely thriving , and there maybe brood left to hatch.
I have e-mailed the guy who sold them to me to ask for a replacement as I don’t think it was in my power to prevent this; the rest of the colony loves the setup and, like I said, the fungus garden is doing great! Seems odd that only the queen should die when everything else is doing so well .
If I do get a replacement then I will try merging the colonies (very gradually as the dead queen is still influencing them).

[damondeionno]

Well, even if the workers won't merge, you can still give the new colony the fungus and any remaining brood. Then you can just destroy the old workers.

If the garden is thriving, then I think you have a good setup, and you are right that it is not something that you did.

Do let us know that the seller says.

[akumas]

Phasmid I'm sorry to hear that she died and it's not a fault of stress or cold. I received over a month ago young colony of Acromyrmex lundi (spec. by desc. on antstore, but I identified it thanks to Weber's work). They was transported in minimum temp they could withstand with heat-pack (-5 at night when they was on route and when they arrived the temp in box was about 10-15C) and they doing fine even after lost of 80% of the fungus because of the test tube flood they survived (with minimum fungus but with plenty of other food they manage and rebuild the lost pretty quick) . Atta is harder then Acro, but they harvest more rapidly and if you had high humidity and temp bellow 30C (above that queen become infertile and some other organs could be damaged as well) they should be ok. About the threat of starvation of the queen I didn't suspect that . My Acro's take care of the queen at the first place , others Attini as well , and most ants do. Workers except of fungus food (staphyla) also use liquids from fresh leaves and fruits as food resource (mostly energy) . Mine for instance receive cut pieces of orange fruit and they drink the juice and share between each other. Here have a link to atta food menu which is used Cincinnati Zoo for Attini Hyperlinks sind nur für registrierte Nutzer sichtbar (My Acro menu is based on that as well + some plants from self experiments + Erne's Winter menu as well). I know it could sound a bit complex but before I got my Acromyrmex I tried to get all the info I could get. Attas workers produce trophic eggs to feed queen (to give material for egg production) together with staphyla from the fungus (basic sugars + some enzymes and vitamines) plus other energetic food sources (like orange juice) so if ants didn't had enough food for themselves they would starve to death but tried to keep queen feed all the time. I can only suspect overheating(but if she lied new eggs you can exclude it) or some insecticide or parasites on her (which could been in soil but this is highly unlikely). We could never know what happen to her, I just hope I gave you some clue to base on the investigation about her death

[Phasmid]

Interesting. The temp never exceeded 25*C. The ants were quickly rebuilding the nest, the fungus garden is thriving.
Acromyrmex are really tough ants, they will take anything. This does not mean that an Atta queen can cope with as much stress.
Atta harvests more rapidly in a big colony, this one was tiny. Acromyrmex queens are about the same size as the workers and don’t need nearly as much attention. I don’t see why only the queen should die, there was something wrong with her.

[Phasmid]

Some fungus pics. You can see how well the garden is doing with so few ants to tend to it. There is more fungus but this is all I can reach with the camera.

[Colin]

oh, sorry to hear that about the Atta queen... I have to say that I dont think it is starvation and I dont think it would be the overnight temperature either... unfortunately I cant offer a suggestion as to what it could have been though?????????

If there is a problem they normally try to abandon the nest as a group and move out but as the workers are still tending fungus in the same jar - then i dont know???

But yes, if there is a next time remove any majors if it is a small fungus garden

cheers
Colin

[JimmyVe]

Starvation, i dont think so. The queen is the most importent one in the colony, the workers will do everything to keep her alive. There are a lot of reasons to die, so its hard to find out why. Its to bad for the queen. I hope you will have better luck next time.

[Phasmid]

Ok, so maybe not starvation, I just thought this because there wasn’t really much fungus to feed her with, and if she happened to really need it at that point...
A mystery then .
Apparently the dealer is in Trinidad at the moment but should be able to get back to me this weekend (wonder if he is getting fresh colonies, which also makes me wonder how long this one has been sitting around and kept small ).

[McK]

Look out with dealers who cut the wings off of a winged female coming from a big colony, take a bunch of workers and fungus from that same colony and then sell this as a whole colony.
I'm not joking, this is being a LOT more than you'd think.

[Phasmid]

I was wondering about that. She has wing stumps instead than slits, but in all the pics I have seen of queens they have wing stumps so I don’t think that the problem.
Apparently the colony was kept small for a few months but I don’t think that is the cause.

The strange thing is the colony is still cutting lots of leaves and tending to the fungus garden. The garden reached just over size of a golf ball a couple of weeks ago and has stayed that way. It is still really healthy and the ants really active .

The dealer says he only does 24h guaranties so I’m a little stuck (£100 for nearly a week) . And I don’t know were else I can get these ants so it doesn’t look like there will be a next time for a while.

[Ant mad]

that is a pain in the arse.
try asking him if he can get you a discount the next time you order (if its from him).
do what us English are good at, complaining and keep asking again and again
but i do hope it goes better next time