ANTSTORE World of Ants

[Adamandtheants]

I have kept my ants in the test tube set up since getting them in November from the ant store. And placed the test tube in the coldest room of the house near the windowsill all my ants were still and some even curled up now the snow has passed and it has been a bit sunny for a few days the worker ants have started to move around yet my queen ant is still laying on her back and appears to be drying out and shrivelling up . The worker ants mover her closer and further away from the water supply regularly.

Could it be they got to cold and she died but wouldnt the smaller worker ants would have died before the queen?

I don't know if I should leave them in the cold place to finish hibernating or to move them to a warmer room to end hibernation and see if she is alive ?

Is it possible she didn't have enough food and nutrients to last the cold period ?

[Adamandtheants]

So I decided to move them to a warmer room, the worker ants have started to move a lot faster and my queen has not moved at all I belive she is dead .
Her abdomin is slightly flat at the back as if she has shrank it's a sad day I don't know why she has died

[Lenny-NP]

What is the name of this kind of ants you have ( sorry i come from Germany and can t write so good and I don t know how I write questions like this in English) and how cold will be the place where she was? And are water in the Testing Tube or are they maybe dry out. And sometimes Ants die without that you have do something wrong. I hope I have understand everything right.

[Adamandtheants]

Many thanks for your reply, I understand your English perfectly please don't apologise

They are in the test tube set up yes and the test tube is about half ful of water so they had a good clean supply of water in there.

It is a young lasius Niger colony with about 22 workers and 6 brood.

I can't tell the exact temperature of the place they were but it was positively not in the minus degrees as it was inside the house on the kitchen window there is never a radiator on in the room so at a guess I would say it reached 3 degrees as the coldest temperature but it's purely a guess.

I have removed the queen ant and inspected her and I'm positive she is dead as her abdomin the biggest back part of her body is not how it was before the winter. I am keeping her in a separate test tube just incase I am very wrong and she's just in a really deep sleep but I think that's my wishful thinking.

I have some further questions

If I kept my worker ants and the brood without a queen for a length of time would they loose there smell of the queen?

Could I then get another queen with workers and put a fine net over the end to stop the new queen and workers escaping and then tape the old test tube with workers and brood to the new test tube with the new queen and left them together unable to get at eachother would the queenless workers take to the new scent of the queen in the opposite test tube? And then after some time add a single ant to the new colony to test if they would be accepted if there was no fighting add a few more daily to make sure there was no fighting untill all workers had joined together and we're working under a new queen ?

Sorry if this is a bit confusing

[Lenny-NP]

I don't think that your Queen die because you do something wrong. I can't see something what you have done wrong. Ants can become ill like Humans too.
The workers will lose their smell but the new Queen has another sell then "nothing" so it can works but it is relay, relay hard and it doesn't work so often and the workers are Pygmäen so they don't live so long.
Normally it is the best to buy a new colony. I'm sorry But I hope you will try it again because not everybody apply so much of effort.( I hope the last sentence was right)

[Kakerlakee]

Hello Adamandtheants,
I'm pretty sure u did everything right with ur Lasius niger colony. The only thing i could imagine is that direct sunlight maybe heated the tube to much!?(you said they where placed near the windowsill and it has been a bit sunny for a few days). The temperatures for hibernation sound fine to me.
Judging from your description I'm pretty sure the queen has died.
To make sure u can still upload a picture of the queen in here, i believe there's a lot of people around who can tell!
I have to agree with Lenny-NP, it's probably easier to get a new queen.
But if u wanna try with the old colony, ur plans sound very good! I can't think of a better way to do it.

Greetings Kakerlakee