Termitat Termite Surprise

I haven’t taken vids of my Zootermopsis in a while. So I took a look today and found a surprise.... A soldier.
For background, when you get a new Termitat, it may have soldiers in it already. My first colony I started off with 2. But with that colony, I didn't know that frass (pellet poop) was a bad thing and indicates the wood is too dry. So those termites were probably underwatered (that colony died out in 2022). The soldiers disappeared (presumably eaten), leaving only their mandibles, and even those eventually went away. The instructions had warned that soldiers are expensive and would probably not last long.
So I was quite surprised to find a soldier in the back of the Termitat, even after a full year.
And back in June, the colony even produced two alates. This was cool, but not a reason to celebrate. Alates usually need to fly in order to actually initiate new colonies - at least that's the case with ants, and I presume termites alates are probably wired the same way. Since the alates were trapped, they would never pair off and start new colonies (and who knows if they were male & female), so I knew they were doomed.
However, there ARE some stub-winged pre-alates running around. I'm told these could potentially turn into secondary reproductives. Now, THAT would be cool.

[@Rasmede]

Thank you for the Update :) I think they stop smeering their poop on the walls when its not that exposed to light, maybe you should lay something over it so they are more darkend when not watching :) that would relief stress. Also why did they ate the soldier? and did it fought back or have they just starved him to dead and ate the corpse for recyling purpose?

[@Rasmede]

I wrote the Termitat Webiste an Email month ago if they Ship to europe especially Germany but they havent answered :/ Also if Allates are in it for reproducing because they only mention 30 workers and some soldiers on their website. Do you know something about that?😀

[@naturenerd99]

Yeah I should've had a better light barrier (I do have a partial but not opaque), but the first batch didn't get so bad in similar circumstances so this was a bit of a surprise. Soldiers get eaten if the colony can't support them. I think I read somewhere that they have a ratio of 1 soldier per 50 nymph/workers, but I could be misremembering. Alas, I didn't see how the soldiers were eaten.

[@naturenerd99]

@@Rasmede I don't know if they are allowed to ship to Europe. In the US, my understanding is that part of why they are allowed to ship across state lines is they specifically do NOT include reproductives. However, termite-keepers are all hoping for secondary reproductives to develop (of course).