queen will not tunnel!!

[dolomite]

Hi everyone, Wow first post, right I caught a queen last year just after mating and placed her in an empty ant world (empty as in ants not soil) she dug a small pit and laid her eggs about 4-6. they all became ants as I saw 4-6 tiny ants running around. winter came along my wife got fed up with so I had to relocate to the garage where they went to hibernation the past few weeks I can only see the queen who still staying on the surface? is this normal? I also done the worst thing you can do and introduced about 10 ants from the garden but they seem to settled in with the queen. but she is still on the surface.

I don't know how long it will stay working but I have a 'ant-cam' if you like you can view it here is the address "http://antcam.hobby-site.org:1033" just put this (without quotes) into windows media player, click on file then open url

thanks for any response I receive about this

[Zarbi]

Ants will sometimes stay on the surface, but usually dig into damp soil. Is your soil too dry perhaps?
It may be that the queen feels safer on the top, though it was very risky adding workers from a nest which may not be related.
She should be laying eggs by now, as most queens laid eggs 2 or 3 months ago, so something is wrong

[dolomite]

Thanks, You may be right there when I looked at the ants after winter the soil did seem very dry I gently squirted water onto the soil to make it damp but avoided the area where the queen was as I didn't want to drown her.

I have only been reading more about ants in the past few days too late to change anything I have done, I was surprised to see these ants were accepted by the queen, well I think they are they keep running to her then away and back again as if they are being ordered about.
for water I have a dish with cotton wool in it with water behind it so it stays moist I take it this is the best way to do it.

[Wood~Ant]

It basically depends on what type of set up you are using, and how the ants prefer getting to both food and water supplies, as to what is best; but often the ants decide for themselves what is good or bad, as it is their home.
A bit like some of us like a bath, others prefer a shower. The old proverb "You can take a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink" applies here. Give your ant colony what you think is best, then let them choose what they want

Welcome to the Ant Hill World forum Dolomite, and have fun exploring and posting
Your ant cam link doesn't work by the way

[formica]

Maybe she isnt fertilised for some reason?

[dolomite]

LOL my wife went into the garage and turned off the light she thought I left on by mistake.

once queens have mated do they need to mate again or do they keep laying eggs every so often, sorry if this seems a silly question but it has crossed my mind before

my queen was mated as she did lay some eggs when I first got her.

I will go and turn on the light to for ant cam soon

[Wood~Ant]

Jun 4, 2010 15:33:01 GMT dolomite said:

LOL my wife went into the garage and turned off the light she thought I left on by mistake.

once queens have mated do they need to mate again or do they keep laying eggs every so often, sorry if this seems a silly question but it has crossed my mind before

my queen was mated as she did lay some eggs when I first got her.

I will go and turn on the light to for ant cam soon

It's not a silly question at all, as we all learn something from asking others
Termites and sometimes Driver ant queens usually mate more than once during their lifetime, but most queen ants mate only once, as like queen bees and wasps they store sperm from the male in a special internal sac inside their gaster sited very near her ovaries.
She can decide (though how she does isn't exactly known, but it may be due to temperature and chemical reactions in her body ) which eggs to fertilize and which not to.
Fertile eggs always become either workers or new queens (both are female), while unfertilized eggs always become males unless they get eaten first of course.
In general, British ant species lay eggs from early spring up to late summer, roughly mid February up to mid August, though March to May is their most productive period as a rule

[dolomite]

I knew wasps did this and I knew ants are related to wasps so I did kind of guess this but wanted to ask to be sure, thanks

[Black Ant]

This sac is called a spermatheca if it's any help ;D

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spermatheca

I tried your web cam site, but this message keeps coming up
Cannot find antcam.hobby-site.org, so maybe the URL is wrong?

[dolomite]

Thanks for that very interesting,

sorry about the web cam I have changed it now, there are 2 ways to view it.

1, copy this URL into your browser antcam.hobby-site.org a black box will show up at the bottom of this is a play and stop button, once you click play you may have to wait up to 30 secs before you see a picture.

2, open windows media player click on file then click open URL and type this in antcam.hobby-site.org:1033 don't forget to add the :1033 at the end

it is or was zoomed in on the queen and is live video, sorry for the quality and if it still doesn't work, I am looking into keeping permanent but with a better quality cam.

[Zarbi]

I entered the URL link for your web cam exactly like this}
antcam.hobby-site.org:1033 but cannot get the page up, only an error sign that says the page doesn't exist

Ah, got the picture to come up, but with nothing moving by not using the :1033
have you considered putting a video on YouTube?

[dolomite]

This is going a bit off topic now, I have taken the webcam down for now as I am going to build a new nest and start it with a freshly mated queen in a few months. I am then going to have a perminant web cam on this I will let you know when I do this.