There's going to be quite a bit of updates all centered in this update today since I was unable to post anything on the journal. I was able to take pictures though, so most of the pictures were taken when the 7th nanitic eclosed on September 8th.
9/8
Seventh nanitic! I didn't actually consider her to be a true nanitic because of how much she was fed after the first worker eclosed but I don't think that played much of a part towards her size, since she still looks like a normal sized nanitic. At any rate, these are the last ants to eclose which are part of the nanitic batch.
They have quite a bit of brood now! so many of the eggs have hatched and are growing larger every day. It's so cool even though they have so much brood, every one of the eggs/larvae develop at a different rate since they were laid at different times. Usually my other queens lay their eggs one batch at a time, but with these, I can see all of the development!
About a week ago, while working with some fellow anters on the ant-keeping discord, I managed to 3D print a working design which connected the 20mm tube to an AC test tube portal. I first connected their original tube with tape, and the new one you see them in right now with the connector. They decided to move in to the new tube today, so afterwards, I detached the old tube. The test tube portal will probably act as an outworld for them right now until they grow large enough to the other setup.
9/9
They tried to run out on me :\ 
While I was testing a different connector for the test tube, two of the ants, the "foragers" of the colony decided to take a peek and see what the outside world was like. I think they got sort of disappointed 
I left them alone for five minutes, and when I came back, I saw one of the workers standing on top of the outworld. She was easy enough to put back inside, but another one had also run away. I found her running around on the ground 9 feet away from the original nest position. It's a good thing not that many of them decided to run away, or it would've been much harder for me.
She looked a little disoriented when I put her back, and acted like this: 
but I guess she got over it pretty quickly. They really need to make up their minds though, taking 3 days to get used to the AC portal, yet run away the first chance they get.
9/10
Two more larvae pupated today!!! I'm having some trouble getting the workers to eat any protein now that they'e in the outworld, since they used to rely on the queen to touch the fruit flies I give them with her magical mandibles before realizing it was okay to eat them. I don't understand why they completely refuse to touch the fruit flies though, and it's kind of aggravating. Do you guys have any suggestions on how I could feed them without finding a way to dump it all the way into the test tube?
9/12
They are actually now reacting very well to extra heat. I put them on the heat mat last night, and this morning, they were all huddle where the mat was in contact with the test tube. Before this, they never seemed to enjoy being next to the heat mat, so this reaction might be a signal that they want to increase brood development speed too.
I want to try and put a byFormica micro feeder into the test tube portal, but it doesn't fit because the lid for the portal has this concave cylinder that points downwards in the middle and makes it impossible to close down if the feeder is inside. Should I try to cut the cylinder off? I was originally a little unsure of whether I should change it, but from what I can see, it doesn't have much materialistic value.
40 workers plus major!! I made a incubator and didn’t check on them for a week. [It was a very tedious process since I used to check on them everyday]. I give them protein [crickets and fruit flies] every 2-3 days to ensure lots of brood. It actually works; 13 pupae, 8 larvae, 20 eggs!!! Sugar mixture: Sunburst Ant Nectar, and Perky Pet hummingbird nectar. They love the stuff!! God, I don’t know what I’m going to do after all the brood encloses. Billy the Major [the new major my fraggles got] doesn’t deserve to be a major. He just stays in the tube, and lets the other workers do the hunting. Bad Billy, bad!! 
