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Artificial Nuptial Flight


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3 replies to this topic

#1 Offline Ross - Posted July 28 2018 - 2:42 PM

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I've seen references on these boards to people setting these up to found new colonies, but couldn't find specific info. How much space have you given the reproductives for their flights?

 



#2 Offline Nare - Posted July 28 2018 - 3:33 PM

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I've seen references on these boards to people setting these up to found new colonies, but couldn't find specific info. How much space have you given the reproductives for their flights?

I've never heard anything about artificial nuptial flights for termites. If you're looking to start a colony, however, you may be able to start with just a fragment of a colony. This only works for some species, but essentially workers and other castes can eventually morph into reproductives when separated from the primary reproductives for long enough.

I've read somewhere about someone artificially mating ants, they just took a queen alate and a drone alate, and dumped them into a fridge for a little bit just to slow them down. Then they used tweezers and placed the drone behind the queen, wherein the two mated. You might be able to try something similar with termites, but it's really hard to tell between males and females in alates.


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#3 Offline Ross - Posted July 28 2018 - 4:00 PM

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Thanks for the info.

 

Moonlight Mantids (on youtube) has a successful ant breeding video he posted a couple weeks ago: https://www.youtube....VrYypOE0&t=500s

 

Some interesting footage



#4 Offline sirjordanncurtis - Posted July 28 2018 - 8:44 PM

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It could be genetically disadvantageous to start a nuptial flight without having multiple colonies.






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