Hi there.
A few days ago, I tried boosting my C. chromaiodes queen (who lacked any of her own brood) with some C. subbarbatus brood (which I happened to have) - a large larvae and a cocoon.
For about a day, she actually moved them around, and tended to them quite a bit. Then, she started pulling cotton from first the air-side, and when I wrapped that in gauze so she couldn't, the water-side, and began basically making some kind of 'cotton web' near the water-side, which is containing both the larvae and the cocoon...
Why has she done this? Is it a form of rejection? I cannot see how she can tend brood if it's wrapped in cotton. It also seems like a rather complex way to reject brood.
As a side note, my egg-less C. subbarbatus queen readily accepted all of the brood I gave her, and keeps it close and tends to it.
Edited by Ameise, July 5 2017 - 12:17 AM.
