Ant Farm Update #5: Life and death in Blue Gel City
August 18th, 2008
It is with some sense of sadness that I bring you the latest news from the ant farm. Disaster struck this weekend when the only two surviving workers were buried in a tragic tunnel collapse. Despite frantic efforts to rescue the pair, they were pronounced dead at the scene, a lack of specialist equipment meant that the bodies had to be left in situ. Replacing the ants has been ruled out due to previous hostilities.
This dreadful news is tempered by the revelation that the queen is expecting! Clearing up any question as to her virgin status, the queen has laid a clutch of eggs on the side of the formicarium.
I would have preferred to see the eggs laid in the protective confines of the queen’s tunnel, but given the collapse of the other tunnel it’s understandable that she chose somewhere above ground. I have placed the ant farm back into the cupboard, as I was afraid the sun’s UV rays would damage the tiny eggs. The question is, who will care for these unborn ants? Who will move them to a hatchery, feed the fledgling larvae? Can the queen do this herself? It would seem odd that she’d have to rely upon ants from a previous colony. So is a mated queen a complete, self-contained colony in the making, like a tiny ant seed? Time will tell…
Entry Filed under: General
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6 Comments
1. coracle | August 18th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
I suppose the fact that the workers were actually tunnelling is a positive indication that the habitable environment for them.
With regards to the larvae, what happens in the wild, I though a queen set up a new nest on her own? If that is the case then she must be able raise new workers independently.
2. coracle | August 18th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
Updated after a little googling, try this pdf.
The relevant text is as follows:
After mating the male dies, and the newly fertilised queen will begin to search for a suitable nesting site where she will create a cell for her new colony. Occasionally a newly fertilized queen may return to her existing colony where she is accepted as an extra queen. She will normally lay her first eggs in late spring, and it normally takes about 3-4 weeks for the white legless larvae to hatch out. The larvae are then fed with a salivary substance from the queens mouth, this period will normally last about three weeks, following which the larvae pupate. This first generation of worker ants will emerge from their cocoons within two weeks
So, it sounds like she’s capable of looking after them herself.
Looking forward to the next update.
3. Andy Lewis | August 18th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Oh, bless her. We are all behind you, queenie!
4. Robert | August 19th, 2008 at 2:52 am
Now why is it that I want only to obliterate the little suckers in my backyard, but I am rooting for them to thrive in this context?
5. sam | August 19th, 2008 at 3:27 am
imo the ant farm adventure posts are the best this blog has had so far, i’m enjoying them.
6. Morshed | August 20th, 2008 at 8:37 am
How dangerous the ant are?
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