On Tuesday, April 4th, I was searching for queen ants in my driveway when I happened to spot a winter ant queen. After catching it, I continued to look for more. Quite a while passed by until I found another queen. Just as I finished catching it, I spotted a third queen a few feet away, so I caught that one too. Despite continuing to look for some time, no more queens turned up, so I went inside to give the three I had caught a nest.
Due to winter ants (Prenolepis imparis) being polygynous, only one test tube nest was required, which made my job a lot easier. Although I caught three queens that day, one was dead for some reason when I checked on them today. This is the weirdest death I have ever seen, considering the dead queen, which I quickly removed, was acting normally the day she was found. The presence of a dead ant is likely why the other two queens in the above image haven’t laid eggs yet. Now that the dead ant has been removed, the remaining queens will hopefully begin laying eggs.
