Hi there!
I'm new to keeping ants; and I'm currently looking after my first colony of Messor Structor girlies.
A few days ago, I decided to try out getting a heat mat and leaving it under a formicarium in case the ants felt that their brood should be warmer. Sure enough, they did! The workers went crazy when they noticed the new, warmer chambers and within 24 hours had every egg, larva and pupa moved into them. I've got a beautiful view of the nurses tending to the brood under some red foil now, and everything seems to be going great- except for one thing.
The queen hasn't moved!! She's still residing up in her (really aging and kind of gross) founding test tube, more or less all by her lonesome. Messor Structor are easy to stress out, and this colony has gone through some unfortunate stressors in its lifetime. It's about to be 3 days since the colony moved the brood, and I believe the queen to be still alive (her tube is totally covered to make sure she feels as comfortable as possible, and I don't want to check twice within 24 hours, but she was active around this time yesterday.) I still see workers heading in and out of her chamber, so I don't expect her to be starving, but I would really prefer she was with her brood, and I suspect the loneliness might cause stress for her.
Do you think I should try and convince the queen to move? She definitely notices when I expose her to light, and the new chambers are totally dark, so perhaps just lifting her shield would get her to move that abdomen over? I'm just worried about overstressing her, and the walk to the new chambers maybe be a bit long as she has to go through maybe ~20 centimeters of outworld and tubing before she would find her new home.
What do you all advise?
EDIT: The queen chose to move! I'm really happy to see her that red foil with her babies. Unfortunately, they're still using the dirty test tube as their granary, hehe. I suppose I can't complain! It's their choice, after all.
Edited by EusocialMonkey, August 4 2021 - 3:59 PM.
