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Post by unknown on Oct 20, 2011 17:20:23 GMT
Hi Guys,
Bit of a newbie poster on this forum but always lurk around in threads, but I thought I would post a thread because I'm a bit confused to why this has happened.
Anyways, some time around June I caught around 25 queens. Only one had died and 2 are lagging behind on hatched workers. The rest are healthy and each colony has around 10+ workers each (starting to think of selling them since its starter to get a bit troublesome to look after so many but that's not why I'm posting).
However one colony (probably the second strongest at 20 workers), has started to attack its Queen..........well now the queen is dead since I didn't know this as I was at work (girlfriend informed me). I was just wondering why the queen would be attacked? The colony only had one queen so there was no risk of competition and the queen was perfectly healthy and active when I last checked on her which was about a day and a half ago.
So could any of you experts tell me some reason why this could have happened? If the queen became weak, wouldnt the workers tried to nurse her back to health? It wasn't a swift kill, my girlfriend said they seemed to be taking nibbles at her making her twitch all the time. Could it be that sugar water and some pieces of wax worms were not enough for them?
Anyway I hope you guys can reply as soon as possible as I want to prevent this from happening to my other colonies! Thanks in advance.
EDIT*
Forgot to mention, the Queen had just laid a new batch of eggs as well. Not sure if this information helps but I thought I would add it in.
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Post by Welsh Ant on Oct 20, 2011 18:14:19 GMT
That's a weird one as I have never heard of ants killing a healthy queen, so maybe she was weak or just gave off the wrong smell
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Post by unknown on Oct 20, 2011 18:55:38 GMT
Yeah I thought maybe she was giving a different scent, but why would it change all of a sudden?
If she was weak, she wouldn't have been able to lay eggs also wouldn't they have cared for her to get her back and up again?
Do you think I should try and put a queen in there (one that hasnt got any workers), and hope that they might accept her? Since the colony is basically dead within a few weeks
Also, they've started to eat the dead queen now.......................
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Post by Wood~Ant on Oct 20, 2011 19:17:51 GMT
I had this same problem, but my Lasius niger had 3 queens all living together, then the strongest killed off the other 2 queens with the help of the workers; but then the workers carried on and killed her too Adding another queen is out, as they will kill her as well. This must happen in wild nests as so many young queens fail to found a colony into their second year. Your best bet is to let these rogue workers die, as they will not accept a new queen and will most likely eat the brood as they have now turned into cannibals as did the group I had. Many queens will raise a colony with no problems, but once workers become matricidal killers there simply is no way to stop them
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Post by unknown on Oct 20, 2011 20:08:16 GMT
Thanks for the input Welsh Ant and Wood, I guess I can just take this colony as a once in a blue moon that this will happen? Or is it quite often Would it be ok for me to place the brood in a healthly colony or should I just let the whole colony die out with the queen?
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Post by Wood~Ant on Oct 21, 2011 7:11:30 GMT
Thanks for the input Welsh Ant and Wood, I guess I can just take this colony as a once in a blue moon that this will happen? Or is it quite often Would it be ok for me to place the brood in a healthly colony or should I just let the whole colony die out with the queen? Usually it is a rare occurence for workers to kill their own mother, it just happens that this colony did As for any brood, you can give it to another queen or colony of nigers as they will adopt it
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