1 reply to this topic

[shAnt]

This is probably going to be a stupid question to most of you, but how important is it for a queen to have direct access to water?
Will a founding colony that has access to water "feed" water to the queen through trophallaxis the same way they do food and keep her hydrated when she refuses to move into a nest that has water and her arrival tube is bone dry?
My camponotus chromaiodes queen and about 10 workers arrived last week, they've got a 3/4 full water tank and nestmate in a mini hearth and have been traveling through it to get food from the forage area and have full gasters, but the queen is staying in the tube they arrived in and so is her brood. The arrival tube cotton was damp last week but had no water well, so she's not drinking anything and they've shown no signs of wanting to move into the hydrated mini hearth nest. Should I be worried about her and the brood dehydrating and dying or will the workers keep her and the larva hydrated when they barf up their gasters? I don't know enough about humidity and ants to tell if I am overwatering the mini hearth and causing them not to like it, but the cotton in their tube, which is directly connected to the nest, is almost definitely completely dry. It's possibly staying humid in it because of the nest proximity?

Edited by shAnt, August 11 2025 - 2:44 PM.

[ANTdrew]

Dump the queen and workers into the outworld of the mini-hearth and remove the old tube. The queen will move into the nest area. Don’t worry too much about water as long as the workers can access drinking water from the nestmate or a liquid feeder. They will certainly hydrate the queen and feed her.