3 replies to this topic

[Kalidas]

Strange question I know but it is something I was curious about. Is it possible for an ant colony that engages in pleometrosis to become polygynous or could you as an ant keeper encourage this?

Like an idea I thought of was based on something I saw here a while back. I remember someone asking about introducing a new queen to an ant colony that had lost its queen. Someone suggested taking some workers and crushing them up into a kind of paste and "painting" the queen in it and the workers would recognize the new queen because of the pheromones.

Could something like this maybe work to help extend the coexistence of the multiple queens long past what would normally happen in nature?

[ponerinecat]

yes, but you could not really influence something like this.

[Kalidas]

Yeah I didn't think so.

[AntsDakota]

Even if the colony matures and grows into several thousand workers, the queens could still kill each other (or get killed by workers) at any given time.

Edited by AntsDakota, November 27 2019 - 9:55 AM.