ANTSTORE World of Ants

[Lowth01]

Hey just a quick question. I have a recently purchased a Camponotus herculeanus queen. She and her workers are doing great but i have been wondering; when the colony grows and eventually matures, the ants will start swarming right? ok, so wat do i do when this happens? do i release the young queens into the wild? Bare in mind i live in england so i can't see this being a good idea seeing as the ants aren't native. I know its a long way off but would be good to know. thank you

[miszt]

if you get that far, then you will need to destroy the queens and males, unless you plan on breeding new colonys

[Lowth01]

ahh i see. cheers

[MrILoveTheAnts]

I don't think Camponotus can breed in captivity. Not that you'd want to.

If you get that far then you could place their setup outside during their normal mating season. Most of the Camponotus I encounter have queens and males in the colonies long before a flight, usually late summer. Flights (at least in America) don't occur until the following spring.

Also very few captive colonies actually produce reproductives. I'm not saying they won't but I've herd people talk about queens not getting the right signals from nature to know when to make new queens and males. Hopefully it's a problem you won't have to deal with.

[nepenthes_ak]

Milta, i don't think it would be good idea, i don't think C. herculeanus are even established over their, so it would probably be best to just let them do their own thing. And Kill any you see starting to come out of the nest, put a mesh over the foraging chamber so they cant fly out.

[miszt]

yes, do not allow non-native ants to get out into ur home country, they can wreck havoc on the very sensitive ecosystems that have spent years fine tuning themselves for survival!

[MrILoveTheAnts]

I thought they were native to parts of Europe? Ok never mind don't let them escape.

[Bob]

Do not destroy the winged reproductives. if you do get that far then put them into testtubes and mail them to someone who resides in an area to which they are native and ask the individual to release them there. Destroying them serves no purpose. In any event, the workers are very good at eliminating extra reproductives who are seen as a burden on the colony when the time for swarming has past. In any event do not destroy them, rather try and relocate them.

[nepenthes_ak]

Or, you can just Take the reproductives, and a couple workers, (and assuming you have a major) And Preserve them in Rubbing Alcohol. I know it might sound mean, but if your colony starts to die out (queen starts laying poorly) then you will have some kind of remembrance.

Bob, Sending Those alates, really would be a waste of time for a few reasons. They wont be in sync with the species in the wild, the males would die, and the females would probably get stressed out and in the long run probably not mate. So it would just be money wasted in sending the alates. And probably the native country's Canada and the USA you cant send ants to these countrys.

The wild population is probably more than fit to reproduce what is needed and doesn't need 20-30 alates, out of 100's of alates in the hundred thousands of wild colonies that are probably around.

This also leads to another subject, just stick to native species and you wont have this problem, lol. But their are answers to your hypothetical question.

[MrILoveTheAnts]

Bob: I like the idea, but they might be mistaken for mated with queens if inspected. Quite an interesting scenario if it ever comes up. For America at least I think the law doesn't care if they're mated with or not it would be illegal either way. However, I believe they are native to parts of Canada but I'm not sure of the laws there. They're probably just as strict. But this implies someone is willing to pay the cost of international shipping. They'd be just as good to have them preserved as Nepenthes recommends and send them out to friends. Assuming the colony produces them at all.

[Bob]

MrILoveAnts you bring up an interesting point of laws in Canada. They probably aren't as strict as the laws in the states however(because non native species of ants will probably perish in the freezing temperatures) so they probably won't need strict laws, but you never know.....

To be honest I've never known anyone who has had a problem with winged reproductives. This is because of the following reasons.

1) Some species of ants can and do mate inside the nest. If that happens your winged reproductives wont need to 'swarm'(so to speak) and will just add to the strength of your colony. This is the case with fire ants which are rather prolific in the area in which I reside however despite being here for about a decade I have never seen any winged fire ant drones and I suspect the ones here are mating inside the nests.
For ant keepers this can also be a good thing because you can dimply devide the colony and create two colonies (which you can either keep or fork over to another ant enthusiast).

2) If your ants are not the types which are able to mate inside the nest then due to the fact that they cannot leave the nest, they will simply be culled down (destroyed) by the workers after swarming time has past (eliminating the need for your intervention).

Either way for you Lowth01 its a win win situation for you, providing you ever reach that level with your colony. Nonetheless if you do, feel free to keep us posted. Remember avoid destroying ants for no reason. Always try and seek an alternate solution. Regards.

[JimmyVe]

do i release the young queens into the wild?

Never release ants (ore queens) into the wild !!! You could harm nature doing that.

Nice discussion you have going here i just want to add this:
If a colony is so for that they produce winged ants just make sure they queens ore males cant leave the farm. The males would die soon and the queens would probably just help out the colony as a normal worker. It is almost impossible to mate with such a queen. But never release it back into the wild. It is not upon us to do so.
You don't have to kill them are catch them just let the colony diced them self what they are going to do with the winged ants.

[nepenthes_ak]

Bob, the thing is your ideas are theory's, and true their are some species that do that, but the species Camponotus herculeanus, doesn't. So while Solnepsis speices will and other species I cant think of. During Nuptial flights allot of ants including North American Camponotus, destroy Alates, I am fairly certain not all ands do. I will look into it, and get back to you on that.

With the laws of Canada, they dot allow importation of ants, I had a Canadian friend who was into ants, but he couldn't ever order them. But their was no law on trading with in Canadian territory.

To bad we couldn't go by the Climate though, cause many northern US states, would be able to Trade ants, and import. But still the odds of the FDA making a few exception states would be a long shot.

A way to keep good airflow, in your foraging chamber, is use like a very fine wire mesh, over your Foraging chamber, I don't know if I mentioned that or not.

[Lowth01]

right. i think if the colony ever gets to that stage i will prevent the winged ants from escaping the farm and ill let the colony decide what to do with them. Oh another quick question. will these future queen ants get fertilised by their own males? If that happened wouldn't the gene pool be smaller?

[MrILoveTheAnts]

If it happens, Yes that would be a small gene pool.
Will it happen, No. Camponotus do not mate in the nest nor do will they inbreed on purpose.
Captive mating is something seen more in tiny ants such as Temnothorax or Monomorium (M. pharaonis especially). Queens that don't normally fly to mate as well. The second option of mating is to simply have the queen up on a blade of grass or something where she can fan her pheromones into the air and attract a male to her. But most of these don't occur in the nest and are so uncommon it's hardly worth mentioning.