6 replies to this topic

[millsart]

hi, today I want to share with you a strange thing that happened to me.
last November I captured some queens of Messor sp. during a nuptial flight. A few weeks ago one of the queens died and then I had to change the test tube because the water dried up. when i uncovered the test tube i noticed some big pupae and i thought these were very big majors and then i also saw a queen with wings that i thought maybe the queen wasn't dead.
then today i saw two winged queens and even the big pupae look like new queens.
Is it normal for a one year old colony/queen to have wings?
Did the queen's death had an effect on the colony to produce new aleates?

[Broncos]

Did the colony have workers yet?


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[Martialis]

One of the queens? How many queens do you have in this colony?

[AntsDakota]

It really only depends on how many workers a colony has. If the colony had at least a thousand workers, then it may be considered normal, no matter how old the colony is. If not, then I don't know....... but either way, it's not a negative sign for the colony. In fact, it could be quite the opposite. 

[millsart]

Ok maybe I have to explain myself better.
I caught more than 1 Messor queen last November and I've put them in different test tubes
Nearly all of them founded so I have multiple colonies of Messor
About a month ago 1 of these colonies remained without a queen because she died
Last week this same colony's water dried and while changinġ the test tube I saw an aleate queen and oversized pupae.
Yesterday I saw 2 hatched queens and large pupae5
Btw the colony has about 50 workers

[Broncos]

Ok maybe I have to explain myself better.
I caught more than 1 Messor queen last November and I've put them in different test tubes
Nearly all of them founded so I have multiple colonies of Messor
About a month ago 1 of these colonies remained without a queen because she died
Last week this same colony's water dried and while changinġ the test tube I saw an aleate queen and oversized pupae.
Yesterday I saw 2 hatched queens and large pupae5
Btw the colony has about 50 workers

Then they may just naturally be having alates


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[millsart]

Some images of the colony

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