ANTSTORE World of Ants

[mpir]

Hi,

I have a colony of Myrmica rubra that contains 2 queens and 50+ workers and quite some brood. I've noticed lately that one of the queens is leaving the nest quite often. She also ventures out into the arena.

But today I witnesed strange event when the queen went out to the arena and it seemed to me that about half of the workers folowed her. I've never seen so much workers in the arena at any time. It seemed to me like as if they would like to split up into two colonies. I guess some of the workers didn't like this idea because what happend next was that some of the workers started carrying back to the nest other workers and also the queen.

I wonder if any of you have the same experience and what is the best thing to do in this case? Is it posible that a colony would divide into two different colonies and started war with each other?

[JimmyVe]

I don't have experience with this.
I read something about it, it is in deed possible that the colony is going to split up. I don't think they are going to kill each other but I'm not sure about that. It is possible that they kill one queen.
Strange behavior. In nature there are sometimes colonies with more than 5 queens. But everything is possible.

[Skippy]

My Myrmica

[Kale^^]

That is normal, they might try to split the colony, add another nesting with tube to the arena and they might ½ the colony and then you have 2 colonies =)


Lots of myrmica there. (in skippy's pic)

[pphakkar]

Sound interesting. I had two (most likely) myrmica rubra queens, and when the other had few eggs, it started to attack the other queen, so I had to remove it from the nest.

[4mykids]

Hi all, I found a large black colony that had about 14 Winged Queens in it. I seperated some of the Queens and put them into tubes that now have a few eggs in them - I left two winged Queens in with the large colony and the workers ripped the wings off of one of them and the two Queens now have seperated from one another into different parts of the aquarium and they have split the colony in half has mpir's have done.

Should I make two colonies and remove one?

[mzfckr]

you are lucky 4mykids.14 queens...

[4mykids]

thnx - I have had them for a few weeks now, no deaths yet. Only one of them have stripped their wings off so far.

[mzfckr]

do u now what species?i cant see in the pictures

[mpir]

My guess is that they are some Camponotus species. Meaning that the most of the queens will end up dead if you don´t split them. But that is just my guessing.

[tail__]

How the queens can be fertile if you found them as virgins in the nest? I think the eggs they laid are not fertilized.

[amrik singh]

Unfertilised eggs are going to become exess number of males who will live in parasite and disturb the colony until theyr dead . It is very necessary to keep the arena and window open so the wing ants specialy the females can fly away.
Normaly a colony of Myrmica rubra or Myrmica ruginodis split only when a big colony lost its cohesion and ,in two separates nest get a different smell with time .Maybe the other dominent queen is agressive and persecute the second queen so the sub dominent one want to keep distance ?

[JimmyVe]

Hello amrik singh and welcome.

If i'm not mistaken you are telling to let the winged ants (males and queens) free in nature. If that is wright i must say it better not to do so. Most ants (we keepers) have are not from are district or even not from our country, that makes it bad for the local nature if you leave this ants free and in some cases even illegal.

[miszt]

Yes absolutly agree with JimmyVe, there are strict laws on releasing Alien species into the wild, for good reason, Imported Fire Ants (Solenopsis invicta) in the US are a perfect example of what invading species can do, there are also MAJOR risks to the ecosystem as they may carry parasites or disease not found in the new ecosystem, and that can wipe out entire species, this can be catastrophic

[Kale^^]

Thats tue (Jimmy and miszt), but only for alien species - for me, i have only colonies from Winland (or finland if you like), so i can let them fly off the window which should be actually pretty interesting!