About a week ago I caught a very large amount of tetramorium queens. I had a few die the first day but a lot lived and produced eggs. I labeled the colonies A-W. (I say colonies bc some of them have multiple queens bc i ran out of test tubes) Consider this a Day 7 Update because they were caught a week ago.
Colony A:
shed their wings within a day and have a sizable pile of eggs.
Colony B: Hasn't shed her wings, Tends to lay her eggs in a messier spread. She is probably fertile, as she cares for her brood.
Colony C: Small pile of eggs and she tore her wings off.
Colony D: Decent pile of brood, decided to keep her wings.
Colony E: Tore her wings off and likes to keep her eggs up near the cotton.
Colony F: Two Queens in this one, decent amount of eggs
Queen G: Nothing of note. A few eggs.
Colony H: Kinda experimental, 3 queens in this one, leading to a very big pile of eggs.
Colony i: Two queens in this one, a lot of eggs, and they have a tendency to dog pile.
Colony J: Shed her wings and laid eggs on the first day.
Colony K: Nothing special, just scattered egg placement, but she cares for all of them.
Colony L: Keeps her eggs farther from the cotton than any other queen.
Colony M: The queen has larvae, and she decided to keep her wings.
Colony N: Keeps her eggs in a taller pile than even the 3 queen colony does.
Colony O: Nothing special about her behavior patterns, very consistent with what the other queens do.
Colony P: Scatters her brood the most of any queen. Only kept one wing. Possibly infertile, but she does care for her eggs.
Colony Q: Keeps her eggs literally on the cotton, like stuck to it hanging off the cotton.
Colony R: Also decided to keep one wing.
Colony S: Doesn't have eggs, as far as I've seen.
Colony T: Large brood pile, lots of larvae.
Colony U: Also keeps her brood directly on the cotton, I'm not sure why.
Colony V: Has maybe one egg, probably infertile.
Colony W: Caught a few hours earlier than all the other queens, has a very large brood pile with lots of larvae.
I will be selling some of these queens on GAN when they get workers. I will update on these colonies, probably in separate posts as opposed to on one giant post like this. This took a long time, especially getting all the photos. I am housing them inside of a shoebox with a heating pad and thermostat. I keep them at 30 degrees, although it is usually 28-32 with the air circulation changing. I keep them in two layers separated by a towel as pictured here (there is another row of test tubes under this, where I have my nylanderia, formica incerta, and Camponotus castaneus queens):
Until Next Time! - Matthew
