ANTSTORE World of Ants

[Santa Claus]

WHY? (Lasius niger with wings lay eggs)

1st photo (fertilization):



2nd photo (queen with wings lay eggs):

[NuEM]

It happens occasionally. There is only a small time window right after mating, in which a queen will break off its wings. If she gets disturbed during this time it is possible for her to "miss" the right moment. After this nothing will trigger her "break off wings" behaviour, so she just keeps them.

[MilitANT]

Who did she mate with? Is she still in her mother's colony?

[Santa Claus]

After two weeks she was dead...

[Bob]

Well Santa Claus, queens breaking off their wings also has another benefit. Their wing muscles dissolve to give them the vital nutrients they need during the process of egg laying because they reduce their own feeding during this time. My guess is that the stress of 'keeping her wings' for your queen plus not having the energy which dissolving wing muscles provided collectively proved far too much for your lasius niger queen and this claimed her.

Furthermore, a person I once knew had a harvester ant queen who retained her wings. She layed eggs at first then suddenly stopped laying altogether and the colony crashed. Its pure speculation of keeping the wings seems to have adverse affects on some ant queens. Of course your queen's death could also been due to other causes such as unstable temperature, humidity and diet. Who knows.

[Lowth01]

Same happened with one i found. She laid 5 eggs then died is it possible her eggs wernt fertilised and she still laid eggs abit like chickens do?

[Waldläuferin]

Hi Santa Claus,

A queen with wings can lay eggs because unfertilised eggs will be masculine ants ...
And that queens die is also possible. Why? There are so many causes ...

[JimmyVe]

That is true, it is possible for queens with wings to lay eggs and than produce male ants. But i'm not sure this is for all the species.

[Skippy]

I had 3 males and one female of Messor structor (var. muticus) and males died. I thought ,female is queen now ,fertiled. She layed eggs like normal fertiled queen ,but that larvae became only males . So queens was not fertiled and I killed her .

Skippy