ANTSTORE World of Ants

[MilitANT]

Jimmyve: The first worker seemed like he was stuck to the second worker. I separated them and then the second worker seemed to be suffering from broken limbs. The first worker never recovered and died. The Queen began to stick to everything inside the test tube. When I fed them sugar water I placed it after from the Queen and brood and I cleaned out everything I could. I don't know what the problem was. The Queen now has one worker and some eggs. The remaining brood is dead but the worker keeps caring from them.

[JimmyVe]

That is rather weird (the sticky part) could it be that they where sticking together from the sugar water ?

[MilitANT]

Again I update my journal with both good and bad news:

The workers have finally hatched in Colony C and all have survived BUT... a Queen is missing! Yes. She has simply and completely VANISHED. Two days ago I offered the two Queens a Q-tip soaked with syrup. I left to visit with friends and ended up staying out for two days. When I came home one of the Queen was gone and the workers were hatched.

I left the test tube open at one end so that the Q-tip could stick out at the end. I put the tube inside of a container and shut it just in case one of the Queens was feeling adventurous. I'm thinking either she escaped out of the tube and the container or the workers killed her and completely devoured her corpse. There are absolutely no remains. This shall remain a mystery...

[JimmyVe]

That is in deed a mystery.

I don't think the workers killed/eaten her. That is not a normal behavior for ants. In my experience if a queens dies the workers ore bring her outside like they do with other workers ore leave her in the nest and do nothing about it.

[MilitANT]

July 20th, 2007

The more I update, the worst it seems to get...!

Colony A:

The Queen and her worker are no more. These were my favorite ants and I am sorry to see them go. Their end was spectacularly tragic as they were murdered by the ants from Colony B.

Here is the full tragic story from beginning to end:

The test tubes of both Colony A and B were on the desk, sitting side by side. Colony A had one Queen, some brood and one worker. Colony B had one Queen, eleven workers, and several brood. Somehow they managed to push out their cotton plug and remove the colony plug attached to Colony A. Outnumbering the first colony, they killed the solitary worker and the solitary Queen. They adopted the brood as their own and now they live in Colony A's test tube. It's been an amazing series of events but I am devastated by the outcome. Hopefully, these ants will remain where they are and not escape. I have to be very careful with them -- they are extremely lethal and I have other Queens and colonies on my desk within close proximity to their test tube.

Colony C:

The cotton plug nearest to the water is becoming vile with ant waste and decomposing food. I need to figure out how to move them and fast.

Crematogaster kennedyi #1

This Queen has eggs and larvae.

Crematogaster kennedyi #2

This Queen has eggs and larvae.

Crematogaster kennedyi #3

This Queen has eggs and larvae.

Formica (sp?)

This Queen has a massive pile of eggs and larvae.

[JimmyVe]

These are in deed some lethal ants. How did they remove the cotton ? Are the ants still in a tube with no out world ? If there are 11 workers you better give them a little out world. (try not placing them to near to other species. )