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Post by TenebrousNova on Apr 12, 2012 18:04:24 GMT
I have to disagree with not knowing what caused a queens death, I believe the worse deaths are when it's you own fault though not knowing would follow close behind... I would alway give her the brood, but I would let the workers die of natural causes as its too risky let's hope queen 2 does better. However when I last read she wasnt doing well how is she doing now? For some reason or another she wasn't very comfy in her test tube and tore bits of cotton (A sign she wants to dig) but upon giving her a soil set up she decided to stay. She had about fifteen eggs this morning. When I started to put the brood into her test tube she was (Understandably!) quite surprised and didn't know what to do, but soon began to pick them up and put them next to her eggs. Lambda's workers were attempting to stop me from taking the brood, unsurprisingly. I'll check on Gamma next Thursday to give her time to calm down, and hopefully she will have kept her new charges- one pupa is changing colour and hopefully I didn't accidentally damage it during the move.
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Post by bobdol on Apr 13, 2012 19:06:30 GMT
I had a lot of sucess giving Lasius niger workers from a colony who's queen had died to another colony. I isolated each of the workers in their own testube for a week to remove and colony smell and then placed them in with their new colonies one by one. I did not see a single worker rejected although a few were made unwelcome at first.
You could try this with the Messor workers and if there is a lot of agression with the first worker you introduce then just remove her and stop. I can completely understand why you wouldn't want to risk it though. The main reason for me was I just hated the queenless workers being without hope of a new colony.
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