Can foraging worker ants become queens?
Workers cannot become "queens" because the development of a larvae into a worker or a queen happens during the larval stage, depending mainly on the food that the larvae is given. That being said, once the queen is removed from a colony, in many ant and other social hymenopteran species, workers are no longer inhibited by the pheromones produced by the queens that prevent the growth of the worker's ovaries. So in some species, removing the queen can lead to workers laying eggs but these will most often be parthenogenetic and lead to the production of males only. In a very few species, workers can produce female eggs by parthenogenesis or mate with males after the removal of the queen. Such traits are usually associated with large body size and small colony size, so they are unlikely to be the ones you have in buildings.


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