 During the process of founding a colony , as many as three to four queens cooperate with each other to find a suitable nesting ground , but after the first generation of workers are born , they fight each other until one queen is left alive . However , occasional colonies are known to have as many as six queens coexisting peacefully in the presence of workers . A queen searches for a suitable nest site to establish her colony , and excavate a small chamber in the soil or under logs and rocks , where she takes care of her young . A queen also hunts for prey instead of staying in her nest , a behaviour known as claustral colony founding . Although queens do provide sufficient amounts of food to feed their larvae , the first generation of workers are " <unk> " ( or minims ) ; smaller than the smallest workers encountered in older developed colonies . Several species do not have any worker caste , and solitary queens will raid a colony , kill the residing queen , and take over the colony . The first generation of workers may take awhile to fully develop into adults ; for example , M. forficata eggs take around three to four months ( 100 days or more ) to fully develop , while other species may take up to eight months . 
