Tips for Catching a Queen (Rural Areas)

[Nimarus]

Hello. After watching AntsCanada on YouTube for a few years now, I'm thinking of giving a go at caring for an ant colony. I've seen numerous people recommend checking sidewalks for ants at different times depending on species. My problem is that I live in a rural area without sidewalks (property borders with a State Park, so the forest starts at my back yard). The closest thing to a sidewalk I have is a paved road (driveways are all gravel). As a child, I would always find ant mounds in my yard or even the occasional colony under one of the very large rocks in my yard. There has always been a very large ant colony under a giant rock between two dogwood trees on the hillside by my home.

There are a few spots in my yard that I've always found ant colonies (even back when I was a little kid). So I know of a few places I could find an established colony. However, I'd prefer not to disturb the ants if not necessary.

So some advice I'm asking about is:

Least intrusive methods to find a queen that doesn't require I find them on a sidewalk.
If I ended up digging up a colony of ants, how badly could this damage the colony? Or are they more resilient than I'm thinking?

[AusAnts]

try turn on all house lights and check every 10-20 minutes. This works best after some rain. I did this and i got lots of small queens. I also found my camponotus like this.