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Post by Deleted on Dec 1, 2012 2:04:54 GMT 1
Hi I need urgent advice, its my first time keeping ants, i just started a nest in July with a newly mated queen from the garden. there must have been about ten maybe more or less workers in the colony, anyway the other day i noticed they had all died apart from the queen, but she wasn't looking too good, so i took the ant farm apart, it came in 2 half's so i layed it flat and and just took one side off. the nest stayed together and i put it like that in the foraging tank so if she needed to get water or food she could get it, when i opened it i could see all the dead workers still in the little nest area, they only had one chamber, anyway i left the queen alone for 24 hrs i just checked on her, she has moved a bit, i checked to see if she was still alive and i think i saw her move, but shes surrounded by the dead workers. i don't know what to do i don't want to stress her out but i think i should take her out and put her somewhere else, i have another nest area set up but i don't think shes well enough to borough into a new nest because ive not really seen her move much, i thought maybe put her in a tuperware tub with tissue in for her to hide in to feel secure or an empty tuperware tub, i don't know what to do, please help any advice would be appreciated
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Post by Myrm on Dec 1, 2012 4:06:00 GMT 1
From my experience the prognosis is not good. It seems that though queen ants can successfully raise their first brood on their own, if all of her first generation of workers dies before she is able to raise more workers, then the chances of her perfoming the same feat again is dramatically lessened.
My advice would be to return her where she feels safe, leave her alone in a dark place and see what happens. There's probably not much else you can do.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2012 22:32:20 GMT 1
Hi Thanks for getting back to me so quick Mrym i really appreciate it. I wont be able to put the farm back together now. and the ten pence size area where she is, one side is fallen down a bit, but on the side where she is, its still OK and there isn't any risk of her being buried because the nest is on its side. i put in fresh water and a drop of honey and used a small paint brush and very carefully removed the dead ants from the nest, covered the tank and left her alone, this was yesterday, i haven't checked her since, i think ill just leave her for a couple of days now and see how she gos.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 3, 2012 3:54:52 GMT 1
Good call. Remember, sometimes the best (and hardest) thing to do for the queen is just wait and let her sort out the issues. Sometimes forcing her to do things can be more harmful than good.
When I've put queens in nests and things have gone awry, I tend to try and safely extract them and put them back in small containers/test tubes so they don't have to worry about potentially harmful contents in the dirt, etc. Sometimes this also doesn't work out though.
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