Sad day for ant #1, she has a total of only five eggs and one sixth egg far off in the corner away from the others. She seems to be ignoring her eggs so I don't think they will hatch. I'm holding out hope that she will eventually lay more and look after them but poor girl just hasn't figured it out. If by spring she still has no eggs I'm going to have to let her go back into nature and hope she will be able to found a colony out there or peacefully return to the earth if she isn't fertile and let her die in the comfort of the wilderness where she was born. It's unfortunate but infertile queens often times die since they can not found a colony to help them survive. It's a sad part of nature but as someone who respects nature I too have to respect her place in the wheel. I really hope there isn't anything wrong with her and she will start laying eggs eventually, maybe just a late bloomer.
Ant #2 WHOA, she went from seven eggs to a bundle over the past week. I have no idea how she can look after this many eggs but she's trooping through it. She's a great mother, constantly tending to her eggs and I think I may have caught her laying another. I felt confident enough with her large brood that she would be safe to find a new home for. An up and coming ant keeper has already laid claim to this lucky girl and once she has three workers she will going to live with him. He's pretty proud of his girl already and she is going to be a great queen with a big colony.
Ant #3 She started out with one of the larger broods early on and she still has a LOT of eggs she is tending to. No larva have hatched yet from what I can tell but her brood is so big they might just be clustered up with all those eggs. I also didn't want to keep her uncovered for too long since she instantly went into protective mama mode and tried moving her eggs away from the side of the glass I was looking in on so I covered her quickly. She is not currently spoken for but looking for an any keeper who would like to take her in once she gets 3 or more workers.
Ant #4 Titania. One of the girls I am keeping as my backup colony. She's got a massive mound of brood and I think I saw larva in there. She was pretty stressed out from my looking in on her so I covered her up before I could confirm larva. Her brood was already massive before but it's easily doubled. I think she will end up surpassing my number one girl on getting workers first but who knows. My number one top pick has been hard focused on caring for her brood.
Cersies, my grand queen and my number one pick. She is the founder of my now named Lannister colony. She has a large brood but no larva yet. She tends to her eggs constantly and isn't bothered too much from me checking on her. She is in fact the queen pictured above and currently the only one I can safely take pictures of without stressing her out. Her brood has been surpassed by Titania's but it's her willingness to not stress under observation and large brood which made her my top pick. She allows me short windows into the world within the queens chambers. She will also likely end up being my queen and colony featured in my youtube channel starting in spring. Cersies is the founder of the first proud and colony to be viewed in my ant room and by next month I hope to have another surprise, a queen worthy of being called Stark from an ant species who loves the cold.
This is my majestic queen looking over her little brood. There are a lot of eggs and recently her first larva hatched. I gave them a sip of honey even though the queens nor young will eat for the first generation making her first workers smaller than the average worker of her species but with these first workers her second wave of offspring will grow healthy and strong in their care.
