A few weeks back, my good pal Devi and I were anting, and we had the spectacular luck of walking into a P. occidentalis flight. We did what any two sane ant keepers would do, and immediately captured several queens to sell, seeing as they’re the only deregulated species. Of course we each kept a queen. My queen was put into a test tube setup and placed next to a lava lamp for heat. This worked better than expected, and she laid a rather large egg pile.
It all went downhill when my THA minihearth arrived, for I am not patient.
To my eventual chagrin, I took the glass off the minihearth and put the end of the test tube in it. And for a while, all was well. The queen explored the inside of the minihearth and its outworld. However, the queen somehow found my table a more suitable place to explore, and left her eggs in the test tube and just RAN. This thing was hauling gaster like Usain Bolt, and it nearly escaped me entirely. I managed to catch her on a piece of paper and place her in the outworld, and then I put the glass back on the nest.
The eggs were still in the test tube, but I’d heard moving them was a piece of cake with a wet q-tip, so I wasn’t worried.
Moving the eggs was not a piece of cake. It took 4 cotton swabs, and once they were egg-laden, they were placed in the outworld, where their loving and kind mother proceeded to completely ignore them. After a few days I gave up, threw away the cotton swabs, and put dandelion seeds in the outworld.
About 3 days later, she had laid another batch even larger than the first. Success! I know I handled this in the worst possible way, and I will never try that again, but all’s well that ends well. It’s worth noting I wouldn’t have tried this at all if the queen wasn’t semi-claustral. This was a long post, and the next update should arrive when I get larvae. Thanks for reading.
Edited by Spazmops, March 15 2021 - 8:29 AM.
, Ponera pennsylvanica, and Pheidole morrisi! 
