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Post by TenebrousNova on Sept 21, 2017 13:49:30 GMT
Sorry about the lack of updates! The replacement colony arrived shortly after the last update and contained the umbratus queen with five niger workers. No brood or workers of her own unfortunately, but it looks like it was the last colony in stock. I collected the dead queen's larvae and gave them to this one so hopefully they'll grow into new workers. When I collected those larvae, I decided to release the queenless workers into my garden. Just out of interest though, I introduced one of the orphaned umbratus workers to this colony...and to my astonishment, she immediately imprinted on the queen and follows her everywhere now. Unfortunately, by the time I realised, the other workers were long gone or I would've tried to introduce those as well. My little 2016 Lasius niger colony (Which I still need to make a journal for!) has been bringing cocooned pupae to the surface, so I nicked about 10 for this colony. They've been adopted with no trouble...wish this queen would start to lay eggs of her own!
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jan 31, 2018 19:07:36 GMT
All of the Lasius niger cocoons in this colony hatched during the winter. The umbratus worker is still present and seems bolder than she was before, since she used to hide behind the umbratus queen all the time. Recently the colony ate a small cricket, but the umbratus larvae have barely grown. Still, I'm quite happy with their progress since my previous attempts to keep L.umbratus failed miserably.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Feb 27, 2018 13:02:01 GMT
I got a happy surprise today when I checked this colony and found that although the little larvae still haven't really grown, the queen has laid a small pile of eggs! If they make it to adulthood then this parasitic queen will have overcome the biggest hurdle of forming her own colony and will no longer need to rely on her L.niger hosts.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Mar 3, 2018 21:16:25 GMT
It looks like I'll have to eat my words...just found the queen lying dead on her back. No idea what could've caused this, all the workers are still doing okay. I'll most likely transfer the umbratus brood to my niger colony in hopes that they'll look after their "cousins". That concludes this journal, sadly.
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