ANTSTORE World of Ants

[Sphecomyrmex]

Hi all,
i've just purchased a Polyrhachis dives colony at ANTSTORE, with 500-1000 workers (still guessing what's the real colony's dimension...). Colony arrived in a pre-builded bulk. I've just seen males and mature larvae, sporadically used by workers to plug that hole or the other. Workers are of every dimension. I don't know how many queens there are.

However, the colony arrived with many dead bodies, and i was expecting an huge number of dead bodies, so fine. The majority is made of dead males. However there are also mutilated workers... now, i see also that by yesterday morning, when the colony arrived, till now, the next day in the afternoon, there are some workers that attack other workers, and these last do not try to defend. They pick up an antenna or a leg of another worker, and pull it... There are also a few mutilated workers that are alive, without a leg or an antenna for example, and they seem fine (they eat and all that). Apart from these aggressions, the colony looks fine, it's waving the nest, regrouping dead ones, eating, drinking, and all that... Temperature is 24-26 degrees, humudity 80-90 percent, and i've ventilated the nest to try to disperse the huge amount of formic acid i guess the ants have released during the stress of the journey.
So, what'up? Too many formic acid in the air? Too stressed? Too hungry of preys? Or maybe other reasons? Who can help me explining why these agressions are happening?

PS: very, very sorry for my gorgeously bad english. I'm hoping that someone actually understood something. If not, please administrators delete this piece of spam.

[Antchrist]

Stress makes even the coolest ant act weird. When "you" ship ants there is always a risk. Shipping 500-1000 ants you can be 100% sure that they will act just like yours, or worse.

Keep it cool and let some air in the formicarium, let the ants get back to normal in their own pace..

-Good luck-

[Sphecomyrmex]

Thanks, now after some days there are still some aggressions, but generally the iperactivity has been ceased. Now the colony looks more calm.

Someone had my same problem with this species?