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Post by Wood~Ant on Mar 7, 2012 11:27:39 GMT
It seems to me that the evidence points to her eating her eggs. Try feeding her with a few seeds and maybe a dead insect and see if this improves matters, though often sadly a queen who eats her first clutch of eggs may possibly do so with others; and if this happens she will always cannibalise any brood she has, leading to her eventual downfall and demise.
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Post by IceWhyte on Mar 7, 2012 13:14:52 GMT
That's a shame. Hopefully she will lay more soon. Didn't think she would eat her own eggs without being disturbed first
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Post by TenebrousNova on Mar 14, 2012 10:25:42 GMT
(Log 6)I decided to move her into a soil set up this morning, when the water reservoir had completely dried and there were no eggs. I removed the cotton and positioned the test tube in front of a small hole that I made in the soil. Her first act was to rush out and hide in it. ;D She stayed in there for a while before beginning to explore. I kept her test tube in there and she's gone back inside for the time being. If the shredded cotton inside the test tube is anything to go by, she's quite eager to start digging.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Mar 15, 2012 7:31:22 GMT
(Log 7)Quite a premature entry, but since the plastic container doesn't radiate heat as quickly as the test tube did, I had to be sure that it wasn't too warm for the queen. She's sitting at the bottom of a long tunnel. It isn't sealed off yet, but it looks promising so far.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Mar 23, 2012 9:19:32 GMT
(Log 8)There seems to be a modest pile of eggs with her at the moment. I'm still worried about the container that she's in as it is either quite damp in some places whilst completely dry in others. The condensation doesn't help either. But at least she has got some eggs.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Apr 12, 2012 10:43:30 GMT
(Log 9)
Until a few minutes ago, she still had a tiny pile of eggs. My older Messor queen has died, so I have transferred three pupae, about 15-20 larvae (A few of which will soon pupate (If she doesn't eat them!)) and perhaps 20 eggs to this young lady. I appreciate that Lambda formed her colony from adopted brood, so I hope that Gamma can do the same.
This is a valuable gift, so I hope she doesn't squander it by eating them.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Apr 18, 2012 11:53:10 GMT
(Log 10)Although she displayed displeasure at my checking her just now, she appears to have kept her adopted brood. There's at least two pupae, but I didn't look for long as I would rather not push my luck.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Apr 25, 2012 10:11:38 GMT
(Log 11)This queen still retains all of her brood. One of the pupae is beginning to change colour, so I estimate that the first worker will be born in perhaps two weeks. There's three pupae for the moment. The larvae are a nice size and there appears to be some more eggs, having adopted brood probably helps her as she can put more energy towards feeding the larvae rather than laying more eggs. She was a bit calmer than last week when I checked. Once the first worker is here, I'll put in some dandelion seeds and see what they make of it. I'm worried that if I try and feed her now, it will trigger a response where she will begin to want more food, thus beginning to eat the brood.
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Post by TenebrousNova on May 2, 2012 9:04:13 GMT
(Log 12)My patience is paying off- behold this queen's six pupae. Two of which will eclose soon if all goes according to plan. I'm very pleased that she has got this far without scoffing the brood. There's still larvae of varying sizes in there, and the queen retains a fair amount of her reserves by the looks of her. I think that the trick with this species is to forget about their existence entirely until it's time to check on them again. She seemed amicable enough when I looked. The mould doesn't seem to bother her but there is very little water left, so I'm not sure what I'll do when the workers eclose.
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Post by TenebrousNova on May 9, 2012 7:21:59 GMT
(Log 13)Proud mother with her first duo of workers. There's four pupae left, one of them is very dark and may well eclose today. I have put a few types of seed and a tiny bit of cheese in, in hopes that they'll be tempted. The queen seems a bit calmer now. The workers are quite dark, so I imagine that they're a few days old now.
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Post by TenebrousNova on May 10, 2012 7:18:22 GMT
(Log 14)As I predicted, Worker Three is up and about. I checked them this morning to see if they had touched their food. I cannot see the cheese I gave them, so I guess they must have eaten it. The seeds are in a small pile. I gave them a severed mealworm to see what they would make of it, and although the queen examined it from every angle there has been no response yet. I will check on Saturday. I would like to get them out of their test tube quite soon, and so does the queen judging by the chewed up cotton by the front.
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Post by TenebrousNova on May 13, 2012 9:54:10 GMT
(Log 15)And then there were four. ;D There's two dark pupae, one big larva and a small pile of eggs now. They seem quite interested in little bits of ham.
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Post by TenebrousNova on May 17, 2012 6:33:04 GMT
(Log 16)There are now five workers. There would have been a nanitic sixth, but she appears to have died because of a failure in the extrication process whilst eclosing. There is one big larva and some eggs. I am not sure how I should proceed.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jun 12, 2012 17:07:19 GMT
(Log 17)
This queen has managed to lose all of her workers. The colony didn't eat anything, and slowly wasted away whilst eating their own brood.
I don't think I'm likely to try this species again, as they seem nearly impossible for me to keep despite my trying every trick in the book.
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Post by TenebrousNova on Jun 13, 2012 16:04:16 GMT
She now seems quite lethargic. I don't think she's going to last for very long now.
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