Queen has near death experience

[shaan]

My Messor barbarus queen had lots of big larvae and was just about to establish a colony.
All was looking well and I decided that I will leave the queen and not open the draw that she is on and disturb the larvae for 1 week.

Well I could not stop myself . My curiosity for ants got the better of me and I decided to take a peak.




To my horror I found the tube she was in flooded with honey water and the queen drowning.

Acting quickly I saved the queen, but I could not save the big larvae and I was only left with the larvae that you can hardly tell the difference between if it was an egg.

Well right now the queen is safe and sound without only 5 of her 30 larvae remaining.

What I want to know is why did the tube flood. I had used it around 5 times for the upbringing of queens so why did it flood?

[camponotus]

Hmm you keep honeywater with her in the tube ? why ?
And why it has flood is because not tight enough cotton, so maybe queen has tried to dig her nest bigger and decided to dig from the side where is honeywater -> honeywater flooded. That happened for me too once, though it was water, not honeywater.

And about 30 larvae, very strange queen you have if she had 30 larvae

[Vendayn]

I think there has to be a different way and I can't think of it to keep the water out but the queen enough moisture. I've had all my colonies from scratch die because the containers flooded, not because it wasn't tight enough but because the queen digs into the cotton. If you insist on using cotton maybe tilting the tube so the queen doesn't drown and the brood also.

[Wood~Ant]

The simple solution I used was to remove the queen from the tube. I placed mine in a small plastic container with just an inch of barely moist soil, as Messor don't like things wet and prefer to be kept on the dry side.

There is a care plan for this species, which was sent to me by a previous member, in my advice chamber