Crematogaster Ants

[angelicdefender]

I have been keeping a very close eye on this Crematogaster nest in this tree in my yard, as I hoped for several years to catch one of their queens, and today, finally, I received my chance! ;D However, it was not a nuptial flight-here in Nanjing, we have been getting torrential rains lately, and I guess the Crematogaster ants were nervous about the old tree, and they marched out carrying their brood. I was very excited, and I waited with a pair of tweezers and my formicarium. I caught the queen, 93 eggs, 114 workers, 22 pupae, and 16 larvae. I hope all goes well. The queen, however, is very stressed, as is to be expected.

[angelicdefender]

The queen has settled down much faster than I expected. Already, she is laying eggs. She has laid 4 so far, and I hope to see some new workers soon.

[angelicdefender]

I'm so mad I could spit acid! Of course, I'm also sad (Today I came upon a most horrific sight. I was checking on my acrobat ants, and I noticed them doing something horrible. They were devouring the queen! She was most certainly alive when I got there, as her antennae were twitching, but her own workers were biting and pulling at her legs and abdomen. Can anybody explain this? I thought ants were supposed to cannibalize their brood in dire situations, not their queen. Of course, it could have just been a winged alate who wasn't released, and the ants were trying to kill it. I dunno, but after I tapped the glass a couple times, the assailants left, leaving the injured queen alive, for now. But seriously, has anyone else seen this kind of thing happen before?

[TenebrousNova]

Does she have any physical injuries (Such as missing legs or antennae)? I was going to say that sometimes workers seem to treat queens roughly when pulling them along, but this sounds more like an attack to me.

[angelicdefender]

The queen has now 5 and a half legs , and her gaster appears to be a bit split! She doesn't do anything, just stands in one place, and I haven't noticed workers feeding her. She has definitely gotten much smaller.

[angelicdefender]

The injured queen is now dead. I found her body next to a pile of about a dozen eggs. Hopefully, that was not the fertile queen of the colony.

[angelicdefender]

;D ;D ;D I have just seen the true, fertile queen of this colony, nice, fat, and most importantly, alive. The best news is, SHE LAID EGGS LIKE CRAZY!!! I don't know if this is natural, but there are now about 50 new eggs, and a lot of larvae, some pupae are present, but there are less.