ANTSTORE World of Ants

[jeffrey432]

i've 1 Lasius niger too who has eggs but diddnt grown anything. that was 3 months ago too.
We just dont have a female with the -kugh- from a male. ( but maybe its not treu )
Just wait till shes dead then we know enough.

[Magicalsushi]

I don't know. I was wondering the same thing, but I thought unfertilised eggs would still grow, but only as males, not as (more useful) females. The whole haplodiploid thing is pretty confusing though, so I'm really not sure what to expect.

[jeffrey432]

We only can sit and wait

[Magicalsushi]

So...I ended up giving up on the 2009 queen, as the eggs clearly still weren't anywhere near hatching when it got to the point where I'd have needed to hibernate her. So I, erm, euthanised her. :\ In retrospect, that was a mistake, but this was WAY past the nine weeks or so I'd been told was the maximum before new ants hatch.

In 2010 I collected three queens, and had exactly the same experience - tiny little eggs that barely seemed to have grown after three or four months. This time, I hibernated the queens and eggs in the fridge, and took them out again this April. The eggs were still unhatched. I almost gave up again, except one of the colonies had "eggs" that looked large enough to be larvae, so I figured that maybe they were actually growing, just about three times more slowly than people had suggested they would.

Yesterday, I checked on them again and all three colonies now have some young ants scurrying around. It's taken at least 9 months for the colonies to reach this point, rather than the 7-9 weeks I was told to expect. Does anyone have any idea whether this is normal, and what could have caused it? My flat is probably not the warmest of places, although it's surely warmer than a nest outside would be, even underground. Apart from that, I can't think of anything that's obviously wrong.

[Legendardisch]

it goes slowly, my ant queen wasn't fertilized also, had one ant queen who was, but it is slow, but when it is beginning to grow, it will be faster.

[jbc]

I maybe have an idea but you may thin yhat is off course.
As I can see you live in UK and collected the ants there.
My guess-the ecosystem in where you live isnt so good, so- weaker ants:(
My ants Lasius niger I collected them a week ago and have now bunch of eggs.