It's always exciting on mail day when you're receiving a package, especially when said package is a Queen and some workers!
I ordered a colony of Lasius Neoniger from ANTS_Dakota (fantastic seller you peeps) but unfortunately when they arrived a day later than intended thanks to who knows what or why in the postal service, something had gone wrong.
The queen and her workers had died. They were all glued and stuck to the inside of the test tube. I delivered the bad news to AD and we worked out that a replacement.
Well me being inquisitive and hard headed I opened up the test tube and started prodding around with my long forceps. Queen nor workers gave an inch of being removed from the tube without some force (that I really didn't want to give) so I mainly worried about the queen, since the workers were really really glued on the inside of the tube.
I batted and beat the tube in the palm of my hand and after a couple "whacks" the queen loosened and fell into my hand, cadaver unharmed. At this time I started poking and prodding at her to try for some kind of reaction... Nothing. I warmed her in my hand under a heat lamp... Nothing. No matter what I did couldn't get a response out of her. I was losing hope. She just lay there lifeless, legs curled tight inwards. I returned her to her tube with her still children, returned the cottonball sealing the tube and tucked the fixture into my founding sleeve. (just a test-tube packaging so they don't rattle around).
It was time for work, no time to mourn or continue to find cause or revive.
The Queen and her workers were dead...
Or so I thought.
I came home from work the following morning and did my routine weekly check in on some of my founding queens and was flabbergasted by what I found. The queen and a few of her workers were alive! And actively reviving the remaining workers! I gave them just a little bit of time, warmed them up a bit more, and watched as each worker was unstuck from the test tube and began attending the queen. At this moment I decided I needed to work fast and get them moved out of their original setup. I fixed something up for them and... well to put it not so gently... delicately manhandled them into their new home. After the queen and workers were successfully relocated... those workers really gave me a run for my money... I sought out any eggs and larva I could find. Unfortunately I was only able to recover a single egg and a single larva. I'm almost certain there were more eggs in there I just couldn't get to them 
Currently the zombie colony seems to be doing fine in their new tube with insert. I don't see the egg I rescued, but I do see the larva in there with them. Hoping they can carry on and grow and this isn't some weird fluke. I know I've hear that Lasius is a durable ant, but rising from the dead? Whoa.
