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Post by alexiaashford on Mar 8, 2012 3:27:47 GMT
If you dig up a queen ant will she die because her workers aren't with her? or will she reproduce a new colony?
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Post by batspiderfish on Mar 8, 2012 4:38:49 GMT
It's important to get as much of the entire colony as possible, because a mature queen cannot restart a colony by herself.
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Post by Jenny on Mar 8, 2012 5:17:47 GMT
If you dig up a queen ant will she die because her workers aren't with her? or will she reproduce a new colony? Digging up a colony is a NO in anting circles. You can ruin an entire colony, and any workers left will die off. This method also depletes the colonies in the area too. Many collectors will lift the stones in Spring, to find newly mated queens under warm rocks from an early sun.
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Post by alexiaashford on Mar 8, 2012 6:18:49 GMT
Yea I thought so that's what I told my friend, who thought it would be great to do that for his son's project, I told him to just wait till its nuptial flight season, that way he would know the queen is young.
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Post by Wood~Ant on Mar 8, 2012 9:53:22 GMT
If you dig up a queen ant will she die because her workers aren't with her? or will she reproduce a new colony? If you happen to lift up a stone or paving slab, and find an ant nest under this; or you are digging in your garden and accidentally unearth a nest and spot a queen or queens, your first instinct as an ant lover is to collect the queen(s). If the colony has many queens I would advise taken a few, but leave at least more than half of them in the nest so the colony does not die out. Should you only see 1 queen then you have a slight dilemma, as if you take her then you MUST collect as many workers and brood as you can, so that the colony stays strong. I would never deliberately dig up an ant nest just to get a colony, although some people do as the sudden rush of adrenalin makes them go mad at the sight of a large number of ants just asking to be collected. This is why I caution restraint, as it is so much easier to collect newly mated queens and hopefully get these to found colonies. Collecting queens from large established nests means she could be a very old lady who may not have much longer to live, but newly mated queens are in their first year and have the chance of a long life ahead.
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