Queen Termites

[VR1Ton]

Extracting a few termites for the week, & came across a queen or 9 in the one nest.

Queen Termites_opt.jpg

Quite regularly find queens as I try to get smaller nest as they seem have a high density of termites compared to bigger nests, but have only ever found one queen per nest, so I thought 9 was a little out of the ordinary. Anybody else found this before?

[gomer]

Very odd indeed. Maybe it is the time off the year when they take up wing and fly.

[VR1Ton]

I'd understand if they were winged, but adult queens all n the one chamber.

[Tiaris]

VR,

Any idea which termite they were? Their heads look proportionately larger than the ones I use & you're very close by to the habitat mine come from. I have seen young part-grown multiple queens in nests like this before but can't remember which type of nest they came from nor the time of year (last time was a while ago). Yours definitely look like they aren't going to develop wings at all.
I had a full size heterotermes queen yesterday & put on top of the termite dish in an aviary with young RFPFs & she was gobbled up when I took 2 paces back from the dish.

[VR1Ton]

Heterotermes, I think, small round brownish/grey nest to at most 2' high, most of the mounds I try to get are between about 12-18" round. The smaller the better, 1 12" mound lasts me about a week, I'll tumble them whole mound & put them into a dark coloured ice cream contianer, they stay alive this way for over a week, kept in the cool, & out of direct light.

[desertbirds]

Ive only ever found one queen per nest.They look quite similar to the ones in your post.

[Pete Sara]

could be the rise of the terminator....

[SamDavis]

Interesting. I too have only ever seen one queen. However, I understand that larger termite colonies produce many secondary reproductives which lay the bulk of the eggs and can branch out to form smaller satellite mounds. Perhaps many of these secondary reproductives live together in the satellite mound (not sure about this). Given that the mound was quite small, perhaps it was one of these satellite mounds.

[BENSONSAN]

hehe very cool. Sam they definatly dont last long in my avairy. Birds are loving the termites.

I dont no much at all about them but yea i always thought there was only one queen. Crazy looking little things.

[Tiaris]

Our pest control man was here yesterday & I asked him about the multiple queens in one mound. He said that there is a coastal species in the Heterotermes genus which periodically produce a batch of stand-by queens to fill in if the egg-laying queen succumbs.