6 replies to this topic

[Ants4fun]

Brood boost, or not to brood boost. That is the question.

To boost the queen, with thy pupae and such.

Or to let them be reasoning: "My queen will lay a bunch." 

But what if thy queen is falling behind?

What if she needs to gain a little extra time?
Shall I boost my queen?

What shall I do?

To brood boost, or not to brood boost. That is the question.

 

 

(I decided to be creative whilst asking thy question. So what do you guys think??)

[Ants4fun]

Also if you can please explain your reasons why you said yes or no.

[Jonathan21700]

I think if you have a queen witch has lost her workers or if she has no brood and you have a healthy colony from the same species then I think it's OK otherwise if the queen doesn't really need boosting I don't really like that. I prefer everything to be natural.

Edited by Jonathan21700, March 4 2015 - 11:14 AM.

[antmaniac]

If you can, why not? I like to go out and flip rocks in the garden during the rainy days, if I am lucky, I can find brood which ants move them up in dry area. You may ask how the rocks got there, lets say some mighty hands moved them there. 

 

So, what do I do with those brood?

If same species as the ones I got, I gave them the pupae/cocoons, put the larvae away or give them to other species.

If different species, give to them as food.

 

My reason is that they are great source of food. In the wild, ants raid each other. I even got one of my colonies raided by wild ants. One caution though, if you ever overfed the brood of different species to your colony, some pupae may eclose...   

[dspdrew]

If my goal is to have a successful colony, then I will boost them if I have extra brood free of parasites to boost them with.

[Miles]

In some instances this can be an appropriate approach. It should not be a go-to technique when starting fully claustral queens, as I think that it really takes the fun out of the founding process, and strips the viewer of the experience. After you've done this, or you are desperate to have a colony of a certain species, brood boosting can be an effective technique to get a colony going quickly. I chose yes, but there are times when you should not brood boost.

Edited by Miles, March 4 2015 - 4:33 PM.

[Gregory2455]

I think brood boosting is a good idea, but it should be the absolute last resort before letting the queen go. For a colony, there is no issue as long as the brood is from the same specific species and has no mites or other harmful parasite on them.