Strange death-Solenopsis xyloni queen

[Vendayn]

I captured my Solenopsis xyloni queen back in June or July. I only looked at her once a week or once every two weeks, like I do with my other queens I catch. What is strange about this queen though, since June or July the brood never developed past the egg stage, I never got any larvae or pupae. Usually with Solenopsis xyloni and other Fire ant species it takes a month for workers to hatch. Instead the only thing I got after 2-3 months was only eggs that never developed. I last looked at her at the beginning of this month (on the 9th) and she was doing the same. Well, I looked last night and most of the eggs had been eaten and she was curled up dead. I know it wasn't stress, because I hadn't looked at her in a long time (my parents don't either) and it never stresses any of my other queens just to take a peak every week or two. Just what confuses me is that the eggs had never developed for some reason, which is strange. She didn't eat them either until the day she died.

I haven't figured out why this might be, I'm thinking it was the tubing she was in. Its plastic tubing (same stuff you use to clean fish tanks, not sure what they are called over in the UK...but its this thing that sucks up stuff in the tank to clean it out). I filled the tubing about half way with water, blocked it with cotton half way in the tubing and since there are two openings, I used a rubber stopper on the end to block the water from going out. The entrance was also blocked with a large cotton ball.

Or maybe there was something else wrong, I'm not sure. I may never figure it out.

[Jenny]

Perhaps she had some disease from the wild, and it was only a matter of time

I can't see the aquatic tank cleaner being a problem, I have one of those and the hard plastic doesn't give off any fumes

[zchuanru]

She might have been unfertilized right from the start.