Jackie62 photos/videos of our A. octospinosus colony

[Jackie62]

They are all public now....can you tell I'm new to this?!!

[Formica123]

Great, look at all those queens!

[Acromyrmexbob]

Stranger and Stranger.
My take on this is that there seems to be many inactive queens in the dump chamber. This type of behaviour generally is a precursor to death. In previous years you say they have all died. What proportion of sexuals would you say have taken to working as against those that have not. I suspect that the behaviour, being aberrant, has not been adopted by all of the queens, only a proportion. It may or may not be repeated next year. I can see many dead queens in the dump chamber. Did you say there were no males this year, only queens?

[Jackie62]

The queens are in the colony on a regular basis now and it has been like this for about 6 months. I would say the majority of queens are working in the tank, with a small proportion wandering around. There are always a proportion of dead queens in the dump tank and yes, those queens active in the dump tank are pretty slow-moving. At about every 3 weeks, I find quite a few dead males in the dump tank, mostly with their heads missing and some found on occasion walking about the tank. I have noticed one major change in that is I don't see the larger workers swarming around the glass lids anymore. I always used to have to be quick to keep these contained when opening the tanks. This change seems to have coincided with the appearance of the new queens and the new behaviour. All very interesting.

[Deansie26]

Could this be because they are choosing to produce queens at the expense of the larger worker caste? as it is
pre-determined if I remember right.
Maybe they are leaving themselves a bit short on labour hence the queens helping out.

[Acromyrmexbob]

Could this be because they are choosing to produce queens at the expense of the larger worker caste? as it is
pre-determined if I remember right.
Maybe they are leaving themselves a bit short on labour hence the queens helping out.

I think thats too simplistic. I am interested in the presence of males. Many colonies I have come across have had only either males or females produced. That both are present actually makes the possibility of fertile queens not out of the question. Still unlikely but I notice there are some winged adults present and some that have shed their wings. The act of shedding wings seems to be in response to mating. There may be one or two members interested in taking a shot at one or two queens to see if there is a chance. Do you think it worth sending a few out, Jackie or do you think there is no point?

[Deansie26]

Sure there wont be hard to find members to try with them, be interesting to see it they where.
I cant see the videos for some reason to see the set up yet but do you think a mated queen would have to be a certain distance away from its mother colony to dig and try to start its own colony? Like the must in the wild.

[Jackie62]

I wouldn't mind sending out a few queens, but due to us being a university that carries out research, I'll have to run it by our Biological Safety Officer first, as we will be shipping a non-native species from our facility. I'll get back to you as soon as I have an answer on this. Andrew, could you please advise me on how I would ship the queen ants? I obviously don't want them to come to harm, thanks.

[Formica123]

If you buy some plastic test tubes ( I could even send you a few for free) then you fill a little bit up with water, then plug it with cotton. Put the queen inside and then plug with cotton.
Just a simple test tube setup. Then ship her in a padded envelope 95p shipping for uk

[Acromyrmexbob]

mmmmmh, Marco, not good advice. At this time of year they will die. Jackie, I'll PM you.