Hi everyone,
I'm saddened to say that I lost 2 prominent colonies. I lost a formica colony, and my crematogaster colony. I recently switched up the location of their setup, on a heating cable, which I have had no problems which. The change in their setup is that they are under a window sill. I hibernated them in a fairly cool location, nothing too cold. Maybe that was part of the problem (Hibernation wasn't restful enough?), or any heat generated by sunlight? Oddly It was only the queen that died, I didn't lose any workers.
The crematgoaster queen died after laying a ton of eggs. Formica didn't lay anything. Both are 3 year old colonies. Do some queens just not live very long? Starvation isn't it, I fed them and I'd assume the workers would transfer any nutrients to the queen? Also, if they didn't have the most nutrients I'd imagine they'd cull a worker. Also, then the queen wouldn't lay that many eggs. Maybe the hibernation and heat was too much for the queens and they just died of exhaustion? Usually for any problems, workers start dying as a warning and queens usually live.
I'm moving my other founding queens (luckily one's a crematogaster and if I can confirm there's no disease I'll transfer the brood) and my other colonies. Now I feel terrible, because I have been busy and couldn't check my colonies that much these past few days and my father warned me about making the ants "work too hard" and die of exhaustion.
Edit: More details I've realized: The cotton is a bit dry. Which doesn't really clarify anything, because crematogaster isn't really a dry-phobic species (to my knowledge) and they've definitely experienced dryer before I've moved them. Formica colony just had a replete like worker curl up and die in the minutes that have passed.
Edited by Temperateants, March 18 2021 - 4:16 PM.
