Carpenter Ant nest transfer

[mcarney51]

Hello, my son and I just found a carpenter ant nest in hibernation. We collected various types of ants including drones, workers, and new queens (winged). Despite thoroughly looking, we were unable to identify the original queen although we have two small pieces of wood with nesting chambers that we are hopeful may hold her.
We want to keep this colony as pets but are unsure of what set up to provide. We do have two aquariums that could be converted but, again, are unsure of the setup necessary.

Please help!

~Marcie.

[mcarney51]

Thanks Lebenet.
We have actually captured two queens in the past and put them into test tubes. The first died after producing a few eggs. The second produced a single worker. I built a formicarium for them but they also died before transfer. Very disappointing!

We do have new queens and drones in our captured nest. I understand they require specific conditions to "fly". Is there a way we can contrive this and force a mating flight?

[mcarney51]

Thanks!

So, we found red carpenter ant drones. Will they mate? or do they need to be of the same species?

Also, in the red carpenter ant nest we found 6 wingless queens (large size, large thorax, scars on thorax) as well as many winged drones. There were only winged drones and one winged queen. Are these queens mated? We are hoping to test tube them (individually).

[mcarney51]

So, we test tubed 3 queens with some of the eggs we found and 2 workers. Excited to see what happens!