6 replies to this topic

[Neme123]

So I have some queen ants in tests tubes with eggs and have a mini hearth from Tar Heel ants arriving.

I’m curious if it’d be best to keep the queen in the test tube or see if she’d move into the mini hearth by connecting the tube and exposing her to light. Would this help promote faster colonel development or just stress her out?

The queen has some eggs but no workers at this point.


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[antsriondel]

Wait until she has workers. It is best to have workers before she gets moved as this will be the least stressful for her.

[gs5248]

If she's fine you should just leave her in there. It also depends on the species, if she's camponotus you could move her in there and be just fine. It could be beneficial to do so in that case so the workers don't become attached to the test tube as their home.

[Yourbasicantkeeper]

When she has workers, just leave her inside the mini hearth and avoid forcing her out because then she may eat the larvae or eggs inside the test tube. The right way is to let the ants choose because they know better than we do about their well being

[Manitobant]

That last part isn’t exactly true, I’ve had colonies choose to die rather than move out of a dried out or fungus infected tube. Best bet is to dump them in the outworld once they have workers.

[Neme123]

Overall I’m gathering is it’s better to not move them until there are workers.

Say I move them early and the queen eats her eggs, will she start to lay more eventually? Or will she likely die?

I do have a Camponotus queen I’m thinking about.


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Edited by Neme123, July 7 2023 - 5:36 PM.

[BleepingBleepers]

From my understanding:

 

A queen without workers should not be bothered at all. Place her test tube in a dark area and leave her be. Quietly check once a week or so. Stress will cause her to eat her eggs and everything might fail. Once she has her nanitic workers, she will be a lot more confident. Don't rush to move them to a formicarium.

 

The reason why so many experienced keepers wait until there's more workers is kinda like owning a big mansion (I'm not the best at making examples so bear with me). If you are the owner of a big mansion, you want maids and butlers. The more maids, butlers and workers, the better you AND your mansion gets taken care of. If you have few maids and butlers and handymen, then it is not adequate enough to maintain your home and it falls into disrepair and it gets trashed. Overworked and lost in a huge house, some of your workers will also call it quits. Then your home suffers and you suffer.

 

I'm about to approach the same situation with both CA02 and Honeypots. From my understanding, large workers also do more heavy lifting. It's in relation to the space. Carpenter ants are larger ants and seem to do fine with 10-20 workers. Smaller ants need a lot more. The queen, after being taken care of by the workers, end up relying on them for everything. So there must be enough workers to move the brood around between different spots. There gotta be enough workers to do it often, efficiently, and effectively. The bigger the space, the more they'll have issues dealing with it with X amount of workers. That's why they're kept in test tubes for as long as possible and why a lot of species (I dunno about all) seek out small, secluded, humid spaces for their founding chambers.

 

What I plan to do with mines:

1. Wait until my carpenter has about 10-20 workers, the more the better.

2. Move the test tube into the Mini Hearth or if it doesn't fit, connect it with a hose.

3. Decrease the temperature of the test tube to 70F. Increase the temperature of the Hearth (the area that's away from the water bowl) to about 80F. Cover up the hearth so it seems dark. Open the connection between the two so the workers can explore the Hearth. If that doesn't work after the next day or two, I would shine a bit of light into the test tube, not too brightly, but a bit of light. This would further provoke her to seek a darker, warmer location.

4. Now if this fails and she still prefers to stay in the test tube, I say, let her stay! If the test tube isn't drying up, developing mold, etc. I don't see the issue. I say let her stay longer. If she's happy in there and nothing is up, let her stay happy in there. This is how I setup my queen atm and she seems quite content and the workers have plenty place to explore too. I plan to keep her like this until she decides on moving herself.

 

 

Now, if it does start to mold and become bad in the test tube that you know for sure you have to move her, do steps 2 and 3...after a few days, I would do a full light (nothing hot). Then you might have to dump her out, though I have never done that to say how bad it will get. That seems extreme for me.

 

Edit: Actually, I saw and read stuff about test tubes going bad. If that happens and they're not ready for a Formicarium, you can either put it in the setup similar to what I made and put a nice clean test tube over there and let them move over OR, I'm thinking, connect the new test tube to the old one and they will just have to move it to the opposite side where the clean test tube is located. This way, you don't have to rush them to a Formicarium as another test tube should work just fine. On a side note, the queen doesn't seem to like open entrances so be sure to cover it with cotton to keep her secure and to keep the humidity in. You can make a hole for the workers after they start pulling on the cotton and/or showing signs of wanting to exit the tube, otherwise, best to leave them alone most of the time or if you really need, after she gets workers, you can gently pull the cotton off and quickly put a drop of sugar water in for them to slurp up, only to give more if they're done drinking it all. Nothing else.

 

 

 

EDIT:

 

I saw a video from Mack who is from Tar Heel Ants

 

As an experienced ant keeper that moves queen ants and their brood often (eggs and everything), here he is in this video doing so. I wouldn't try it, especially without experience. I'd be too scared of crushing the eggs or F ing it up somehow. Personally, I would rather wait until the workers come out and letting them move the colony over to the hearth on their own. However, I've talked to him and he's also shown here saying you can move them before workers come, he's done it quite often, sometimes right on the spot at EXPOs without issues. The decision is yours. Good luck!

 

 

EDIT:

^ Oh dang, just finished that video, that video almost perfectly applies to the question of this thread. He goes into details on moving colonies into the Mini Hearth, why he would and wouldn't, about small size ants, big size, colonies with workers and those without and so forth. Super nice watch, useful to me too. Sweet. Mack's so freaking thorough with his little videos 

Edited by BleepingBleepers, July 8 2023 - 9:35 PM.