More on Tapinoma sessile - combining colonies

Having learned a bit more about Tapinoma sessile, I decided I would try and combine together my two small colonies.  Apparently colonies with multiple queens are quite common, and colonies do not show animosity to each other when they meet.  I thought it was worth a try and the combined colony might be a lot more vigorous. I joined the two test tubes to a common outworld and waited, hoping they wouldn't murder each other. It took about 18 hours for them to interact.  Unfortunately I missed seeing the first contact, which occurred sometime in the middle of the night.  This morning though, there is brood moving.  I no longer have any idea which ants are from which colony, but there doesn't seem to be any animosity at all.  The brood is being moved out of the smaller colony's tube and into the larger colony's tube.  There is a bit of squabbling going on, I watched some workers trying to move a larvae and other workers trying to put her back. But no actual fighting to the point of injury.  The queen of the smaller colony seems calm, though there is no sign of her going anywhere.  If this is successful I am going to try to add a queen with no workers and only brood, who is a year younger.  Hopefully that will increase the longevity of the colony, soon to be super-colony!

A few hours later . . . all the brood has been moved into the larger colonies territory.  Everything is peaceful in that tube.  In the smaller colonies tube, things are a little rougher.  There are a few workers clearly harassing others, I assume ones from the smaller colony are the harassed, maybe the ones that are reluctant to move.  It's starting to look a little violent.  The queen seems to exempt from this so far, and is just chilling at the far end cuddled up to the cotton.

Connecting the two colonies to a single outworld (a small deli container)

The next day. . . the tube from the smaller colony still has the original queen in it, and she is constantly surrounded by 5 or 6 workers that seem to be endlessly harassing her, I assume trying to get her to move out, which she seems very uninterested in doing.  I might have to help this process along, because now she has no brood and the workers aren't particularly caring for her.  I hope this ends well, so far no bloodshed, but I am not sure it will stay that way!

The next next day. . . it all ended badly I am sorry to say.  I joined the two tubes directly together, because the queen from the smaller colony really was in a bad spot either way, all her brood gone, and her workers fled, and the new workers apparently just harassing her to move. But when she did move, and found herself in the tube of the larger colony, the other queen started fighting with her, and then the workers followed suit.  She tried to retreat back to her own tube, and I tried to intervene, but it was two late.  The workers that followed her essentially started ripping her limb from limb, and I rescued her to euthanize her in the freezer, and a few workers with her that I couldn't get out of the tube. A sad day, I feel quite responsible for this disaster. Perhaps they can combine colonies in the great outdoors, but maybe not in the confines of a test tube, or perhaps the circumstances need to be very specific and only queens that are originally nest mates can combine. Who knows, but I won't repeat this experiment!