Double Blow.

[Honeydewman]

Thanks to a structural failure I have this morning lost 2 of my colonies.

A canopy support failed and allowed the torrential rain from last night to completely flood two of my tanks.
The rain has been unbelievably heavy all night and I could not save any..

I opened up the chambers to find all had drowned.

I have lost a Lasius Niger and a new Myrmica Rubra colony, which I saved from a friends garden prior to construction work.

I am thoroughly gutted.

[TenebrousNova]

It was raining a lot here last night as well. I'm sorry to hear that.

[deansyme]

Sorry to hear about that mate, hope it doesn't put you off the hobby. I lost a couple colonys couple years back, but learned by my mistakes.
Dean

[Wood~Ant]

I was kept awake by the monsoon like torrential rain which lasted for about an hour last night, as it sounded like someone emptying buckets of water and not just running a hosepipe from a tap.

Really sorry to hear the sad news about your new colony

[Honeydewman]

I still have one colony of Lasius Niger left and the canopy, although damaged, successfully kept the water out of this unit. The damage looks like it was caused by wind but given the position it must have been one freak gust and strong too.

I shall await the Rubra Alates flight later this year and collect as many Queens as I can.
I shall try to collect around 10-15 Queens and hope that given my success with the Niger I can be as successful with the Rubra.

Don't worry down but never out....Honeydew always returns....

[Honeydewman]

Began the clear out of my Rubra tank today and found masses of dead workers, brood and 4 Queens...or at least I thought them dead. Have not located the other 5 Queens so assume they were killed early in the nest creation or have been killed by the flooding.

Remember they have been over 24 hours fully submerged.

Imagine to my surprise that within 10 minutes of being removed from the water they all began to return to life...

I have managed to save 3 Queens and about 100 workers. I transferred as much of the eggs and Larvae as I could with them and the workers did indeed take them into the new chamber but as to whether they too are viable I know not.

I cannot fathom that they have survived for so long cut off from the air as they were all completely submerged and I am still finding the odd worker coming out as I write this now.

So I can say again that I have a viable Rubra colony with 3 very live Queens.

I have transferred them into a unit that has sufficient drainage so as to avoid another flood should this ever happen again.

Weird or what??

[Jenny]

Phew, thank goodness for that. At least you have managed to save some of the colony

[Honeydewman]

The saved Rubra have now all been wiped out.

My Son who was feeding them yesterday knocked a plant stem which then came to rest on my Niger set up. He had either not realised that it had happened or had not realised the consequences of this.

I came out this morning to find my Nigers had launched a full scale assault and had completely wiped out the whole Rubra colony overnight. This morning the Nigers were still busy returning with the spoils, carrying eggs, larvae and pupae.
Dead Rubra Queens [3] were in the water surrounding my Niger colony and will not revive.
Now knowing that I had only saved 3 Queens from the last disaster it is safe to assume that they are all dead.

So the colony is finally deceased...

[TenebrousNova]

That's terrible.

My L.niger were once sneaking through airholes and I had to take measures to stop them, or they would inevitably have squeezed into the other setups.

[greed0s]

So sad!

Saved from one mishap only for another one to happen straight off the cuff when they were still trying to find their feet

[michaelofvancouver]

Well, at least you've still got your nigers.