10 replies to this topic

[Ernteameise]

Another newbie question.

This is a question for the experienced ant keepers out there who have been doing this for years and have kept large mature colonies.

In my harvester ant FB group, there recently was a discussion about what to do about alates that had been raised by the colony.

Several ant keepers reported that the frustrated unmated queens sometimes kill the resident egg-laying queen (their mother).

Have any of you observed this before?

Is it worth to remove and dispose of all the alates after they appear?

Is it worth to dismantle a running nest to get at all the alates?

How much danger do alates pose to the resident queen and the colony?

Edited by Ernteameise, April 15 2024 - 8:14 AM.

[The_Gaming-gate]

Another newbie question.
This is a question for the experienced ant keepers out there who have been doing this for years and have kept large mature colonies.
In my harvester ant FB group, there recently was a discussion about what to do about alates that had been raised by the colony.
Several ant keepers reported that the frustrated unmated queens sometimes kill the resident egg-laying queen (their mother).
Have any of you observed this before?
Is it worth to remove and dispose of all the alates after they appear?
Is it worth to dismantle a running nest to get at all the alates?
How much danger do alates pose to the resident queen and the colony?

I know you wanted experienced keepers, which is not me, but here is my opinion:

(1) I don’t have any mature colonies, but I doubt they’d start murdering the egg-laying queen.

(2) You don’t have to get rid of the alates, but many people just release them outside.

(3) Dismantling the nest will cause even more problems, and alates of some species are known to rip their wings of in the nest if they can’t mate, meaning it will be hard to find the original queen.

(4) Alates are known to begin acting as workers if they miss a nuptial flight, so they may help the colony! If not they shouldn’t harm the colony, and might actually be killed by workers if they get unlucky.

[Ernteameise]

 

Another newbie question.
This is a question for the experienced ant keepers out there who have been doing this for years and have kept large mature colonies.
In my harvester ant FB group, there recently was a discussion about what to do about alates that had been raised by the colony.
Several ant keepers reported that the frustrated unmated queens sometimes kill the resident egg-laying queen (their mother).
Have any of you observed this before?
Is it worth to remove and dispose of all the alates after they appear?
Is it worth to dismantle a running nest to get at all the alates?
How much danger do alates pose to the resident queen and the colony?

I know you wanted experienced keepers, which is not me, but here is my opinion:

(1) I don’t have any mature colonies, but I doubt they’d start murdering the egg-laying queen.

(2) You don’t have to get rid of the alates, but many people just release them outside.

(3) Dismantling the nest will cause even more problems, and alates of some species are known to rip their wings of in the nest if they can’t mate, meaning it will be hard to find the original queen.

(4) Alates are known to begin acting as workers if they miss a nuptial flight, so they may help the colony! If not they shouldn’t harm the colony, and might actually be killed by workers if they get unlucky.

 

I definitely will not let them fly outside, because my large colony is not native (as Europeans, we can keep any ant from anywhere in the world we like).

It appears that my species of harvester ant DOES on occasion kill the queen, since several people reported it....

In bees, it is common practice for the queens to kill each other, as another example....

I was just hoping someone else on here had some more experience with this.

Edited by Ernteameise, April 15 2024 - 11:54 AM.

[GOCAMPONOTUS]

When it is time for the flight they come out of the nest and try to fly when that happens you can get them all and put them in rubbing alcohol.

[ANTdrew]

I’ve raised Nylanderia, Pheidole, Crematogaster, and Tetramorium colonies to alates. All species handle the captive alates a little differently, but I’ve never seen queen killing behavior before. My Nylanderia would just constantly have lots of alates in the colony without any problems. I managed to aspirate many Nylanderia males and females over the years and released them in my yard when wild colonies had their flights. It was a lot harder to remove any Pheidole since the alates rarely left the nest. At some point in late summer, though, the Pheidole do a mass cull of all alates. For my Crematogaster, I brought their outworld outside when wild colonies were flying. I put a stick pointing up out of the outworld that queens could climb and launch off. Seeing that was still the pinnacle of my ant-keeping experience.

Edited by ANTdrew, April 15 2024 - 2:43 PM.

[Ernteameise]

I’ve raised Nylanderia, Pheidole, Crematogaster, and Tetramorium colonies to alates. All species handle the captive alates a little differently, but I’ve never seen queen killing behavior before. My Nylanderia would just constantly have lots of alates in the colony without any problems. I managed to aspirate many Nylanderia males and females over the years and released them in my yard when wild colonies had their flights. It was a lot harder to remove any Pheidole since the alates rarely left the nest. At some point in late summer, though, the Pheidole do a mass cull of all alates. For my Crematogaster, I brought their outworld outside when wild colonies were flying. I put a stick pointing up out of the outworld that queens could climb and launch off. Seeing that was still the pinnacle of my ant-keeping experience.

Thank you for your insight.

I will have to wait and see, I guess. No idea of my large colony is mature enough yet to produce alates this year.

I will first try and remove the alates if they leave the nest- and refrain from opening up the nest and completely freak the colony out.

I hope these reports of frustrated young queen killing their mother are more of an exception than the rule.

There have also been reports that young queens remove their wings and join the work-force as workers.

 

Stuff like this, the uncertainty, the potential danger is some spice I am not really relishing in the ant keeping hobby. I like my ants relaxing. But well, this is nature. Some colonies behave unpredictably.

[The_Gaming-gate]

Another newbie question.
This is a question for the experienced ant keepers out there who have been doing this for years and have kept large mature colonies.
In my harvester ant FB group, there recently was a discussion about what to do about alates that had been raised by the colony.
Several ant keepers reported that the frustrated unmated queens sometimes kill the resident egg-laying queen (their mother).
Have any of you observed this before?
Is it worth to remove and dispose of all the alates after they appear?
Is it worth to dismantle a running nest to get at all the alates?
How much danger do alates pose to the resident queen and the colony?

I know you wanted experienced keepers, which is not me, but here is my opinion:

(1) I don’t have any mature colonies, but I doubt they’d start murdering the egg-laying queen.

(2) You don’t have to get rid of the alates, but many people just release them outside.

(3) Dismantling the nest will cause even more problems, and alates of some species are known to rip their wings of in the nest if they can’t mate, meaning it will be hard to find the original queen.

(4) Alates are known to begin acting as workers if they miss a nuptial flight, so they may help the colony! If not they shouldn’t harm the colony, and might actually be killed by workers if they get unlucky.

I definitely will not let them fly outside, because my large colony is not native (as Europeans, we can keep any ant from anywhere in the world we like).
It appears that my species of harvester ant DOES on occasion kill the queen, since several people reported it....
In bees, it is common practice for the queens to kill each other, as another example....
I was just hoping someone else on here had some more experience with this.

I’m aware of this, but I don’t think they would kill the queen, provided alates can be moved in a non-invasive way (prying off the lid of the formicarium is quite invasive.) I know in my area, you can get a bunch of alates to run out of an anthill by turning on a nearby sprinkler, perhaps a similar method (not an entire sprinkler though, probably mist or some other way to raise humidity) could work.

Edited by The_Gaming-gate, April 16 2024 - 3:44 AM.

[futurebird]

My Dorymyrmex colony produced a bunch of queen after their queen died. They have been slowly killing them off. There are only 8 now, two have had their wings removed for some reason. I trust them to know what the heck they are doing. 

 

My Pogonomyrmex queen died last year and the colony started producing male alates. They were lazy and would never have the chance to fly, so when I'd see them in a location where I could snag them I'd remove them. I took some of them on the screened porch to see if they wanted to fly around a little. But they didn't. I ended up freezing them and feeding them to another colony (I'm a monster) I felt sad about it, but they didn't add much to the colony and I can't let them go as they don't live around here. Also, I didn't like having them in the outworld since I worried they'd fly when I wasn't looking and escape and cause problems. (not likely as there are no Pogonomyrmex queen in NYC, but why risk it?)

 

So I think if you see an alate in the outworld grab it. You could try keeping the queens to see what they do. If you caught the colony near your house and it makes you sad to freeze them it's probably not that bad to let them go. But, even if it's a "local species" if you didn't catch it yourself in that area I think it's irresponsible to release colonies you acquired by buying or trading from other regions. 

 

Eg. if I bought Camponotus Pennslyanicus online I would NOT release an alate here in NYC even though I've seen them around NYC and they are native. This is because there are variations in species over their ranges and you might be messing with the local ecology. 

[Kowal]

I've asked a myrmecologist and another entomologist about it and they both advised me to not release alates from my colonies, even if the colonies were started with queens captured locally. The myrmecologist told me a story about frogs - there was a case of reintroduction of captive bred frogs into an area which had its natural population of the species in poor condition. Unfortunately it turned out the captive kept frogs were incubators of some sort of disease/parasite, which did not kill them in captivity, but did once exposed to harsher natural environment. It took the wild frogs with them too... The story was just mentioned, so I can't find any studies on that exact case, I don't even know the species of the frog, but the conclusion was - my home environment is making survival for my ants easier than in nature, so they potentially can be incubators of diseases. The diseases can be ant affecting or affecting a different part of the food chain (birds eating the alates, for example). There also come problems related to the colony being of a species native to the country, but not being started from a locally captured queen (for example, you bought a Lasius niger queen from a store, but it comes from a place 400 km away from you), causing disturbance in local gene pool. Or the fact I also keep exotic species, so potentially some exotic fungus/virus could be transmitted to my local ants. There are so many variables which are a very low chance, but still non-zero chance of causing a problem, so the conclusion from both consulted people was: 
Don't release alates from your colony, period. 

So I hunt them down one by one with tweezers when they attempt flying in the outworld. It's a tedious job and some do escape while the net is lifted, but that ensures the alates leave the nest. I don't think a frustrated princess would eliminate the rightful queen, but I fear that later I won't know which queen is real and will get trolled by a dead queen in the outworld. Unfortunately, in case of my Camponotus fallax, some queens have lost their wings and are now performing major workers role. They usually are filled with food to the brim. The real queen doesn't get that fat
https://imgur.com/gallery/mnT30YD

https://imgur.com/a/KtXD0ZY
 

Edited by Kowal, April 17 2024 - 12:30 PM.

[Ernteameise]

I've asked a myrmecologist and another entomologist about it and they both advised me to not release alates from my colonies, even if the colonies were started with queens captured locally. The myrmecologist told me a story about frogs - there was a case of reintroduction of captive bred frogs into an area which had its natural population of the species in poor condition. Unfortunately it turned out the captive kept frogs were incubators of some sort of disease/parasite, which did not kill them in captivity, but did once exposed to harsher natural environment. It took the wild frogs with them too... The story was just mentioned, so I can't find any studies on that exact case, I don't even know the species of the frog, but the conclusion was - my home environment is making survival for my ants easier than in nature, so they potentially can be incubators of diseases. The diseases can be ant affecting or affecting a different part of the food chain (birds eating the alates, for example). There also come problems related to the colony being of a species native to the country, but not being started from a locally captured queen (for example, you bought a Lasius niger queen from a store, but it comes from a place 400 km away from you), causing disturbance in local gene pool. Or the fact I also keep exotic species, so potentially some exotic fungus/virus could be transmitted to my local ants. There are so many variables which are a very low chance, but still non-zero chance of causing a problem, so the conclusion from both consulted people was: 
Don't release alates from your colony, period. 

So I hunt them down one by one with tweezers when they attempt flying in the outworld. It's a tedious job and some do escape while the net is lifted, but that ensures the alates leave the nest. I don't think a frustrated princess would eliminate the rightful queen, but I fear that later I won't know which queen is real and will get trolled by a dead queen in the outworld. Unfortunately, in case of my Camponotus fallax, some queens have lost their wings and are now performing major workers role. They usually are filled with food to the brim. The real queen doesn't get that fat
https://imgur.com/gallery/mnT30YD

https://imgur.com/a/KtXD0ZY
 

Yeah, I know this story about the endangered Mallorcan midwife toads and the chytrid fungus- I learned about this in my wildlife health course at university. Funnily enough, the diagnostics lab I work for now is actually doing the chytrid tests for the same project trying to save the last of these toads.

So yeah, I am aware of this and responsible and would kill them humanely (by freezing) and not releasing them.

 

Wow, these pictures. These fat ants nearly look like termite queens!

[Kowal]

Yeah, I know this story about the endangered Mallorcan midwife toads and the chytrid fungus- I learned about this in my wildlife health course at university. Funnily enough, the diagnostics lab I work for now is actually doing the chytrid tests for the same project trying to save the last of these toads.

 

 

So yeah, I am aware of this and responsible and would kill them humanely (by freezing) and not releasing them.

 

Wow, these pictures. These fat ants nearly look like termite queens!

 

Thanks for sharing the species name - I couldn't find more about this, the story told to me was too vague. Or I just didn't search properly.