The queen is dead
A raider reached the royal chamber. Nothing in this colony can replace her — there is no second queen, and no worker can be fed into one.
No more eggs will be laid. The brood already in the nurseries will hatch, those callows will harden and go to work, and then the colony will simply run down as its ants wear out. About fifteen minutes, and there will be nothing left.
The ants do not know. A real colony finds out over days, by the smell of her going out of the nest. Nothing here will change its behaviour, sound an alarm, or try to do anything about it — you are the only one watching the number fall.
Mr Lau Chin Hang
