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[NicholasP]

Yesterday I went looking for Solenopsis Aurea that might've flown. None did fly. So I proceeded to flip the rock where the only Solenopsis Aurea in my area that I know of are located. The suspense was building as I was getting ready to flip the rock... I flipped it! And to my dismay they weren't there! I was so worried. But then I saw that there were some workers there and there were tunnels that led to a rock bigger then my head! Well I didn't have a choice since I really wanted Solenopsis Aurea so I flipped the rock... And hundreds started defending! To my dismay again there were no queens. But there were some alates not many though. Well, I knew that solenopsis Aurea could mate with males and females from the same colony so I aspirated up the 2 males I saw. And then that's when I saw that they were trailing with some brood into another hole! So I yanked out the other rock that they were trailing into... And Success! I found tons of queen pupae and male pupae! This was awesome news since this meant there was still around a month before they were going to fly. and then I started aspirating a few queen and male pupae and then out of the corner of my eye I see a queen! She was still winged but that was good enough for me! And then I tried putting the queen pupae that I decided to leave of the colony in a place where they could drag them back into the deeper parts of the nest. And as I'm doing that I saw a another female alate! I decided that was enough because if I am able to get the alates to mate then I'll be ok. So I put the rock back. So I'm thinking about calling the colony that I collected "The Golden Empire" since they're golden fire ants. If anyone knows of an idea of how I can get the alates to mate then please let me know so we can keep this journal going!

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