Weird behavior

[Ares9738]

Still no sign of them I have located a new hole near the center of the terrarium though, that may be a new nest. I'm not sure if the soil is the issue because they built a nest in it when I first put them in, they seemed to do fine foraging and building for about a week and a half before the rebellion. The soil has also been bioactive since before I put the ants in as it was originally just supposed to be a native terrarium and all of the other soil creatures are still thriving, breeding, and acting normal. I'm still stumped but I appreciate all trying to help, will keep updating.

[SolenopsisKeeper]

So far I can't find them. They seem to have totally abandoned the original nest as I've seen no ants in there since the "rebellion". I haven't seen any ant activity in about a day and a half and I rotated the tower to see if I could find a new nest site. Nothing.

Will keep updating.

Wow they just up and left, sounds like they are not adapting to captivity well. Yes keep us updated

Do you know species? May be the queen is worker-queen(I forget scientific term sorry). This would mean she won’t produce eggs, but will be a longer lived worker ant.

[Ares9738]

Update: I was watering some of the plants in the terrarium and I forgot to seal the watering port when I finished. This very quickly tempted the ants out of hiding as 5 min later I noticed they had started escaping. I used some cotton to catch all the escapees and fixed my mistake. I then decided to give them some crushed up meal worm and called it a night. This morning there is no sign of ants but the meal worm is gone.

I'm not sure if they just got confused moving the nest or if they were rebelling from the queen but from what I can tell they're acting normal again just a bit more reclusive. Thanks for all the advice guys.

[Ares9738]

I was wrong, the weird behaviors aren't finished. The workers have moved themselves and a bunch of brood into a test tube setup I had attached but seem to have left the queen somewhere in the out world. I didn't catch any brood when I caught the rest of the colony so the queen had to have laid all the eggs they moved, right? Why would they reject her then? These guys just keep confusing me.

[AntsLuxembourg]

I was wrong, the weird behaviors aren't finished. The workers have moved themselves and a bunch of brood into a test tube setup I had attached but seem to have left the queen somewhere in the out world. I didn't catch any brood when I caught the rest of the colony so the queen had to have laid all the eggs they moved, right? Why would they reject her then? These guys just keep confusing me.

What if you try to trap them all in a testtube and keep the queen separately? I could imaging the following. The colony was a multi queen colony and you trapped some workers with a queen that was olygogynous towards those workers and the other queen(s). I am not sure if the workers would be neutral or just feeding the queen and snatching the eggs she lays.

So the question is would the queen start founding another colony or does she need the workers.

To me it seems the workers try to run away from that queen or they take care of the brood and don't take care of the queen.

[SolenopsisKeeper]

I was wrong, the weird behaviors aren't finished. The workers have moved themselves and a bunch of brood into a test tube setup I had attached but seem to have left the queen somewhere in the out world. I didn't catch any brood when I caught the rest of the colony so the queen had to have laid all the eggs they moved, right? Why would they reject her then? These guys just keep confusing me.

What if you try to trap them all in a testtube and keep the queen separately? I could imaging the following. The colony was a multi queen colony and you trapped some workers with a queen that was olygogynous towards those workers and the other queen(s). I am not sure if the workers would be neutral or just feeding the queen and snatching the eggs she lays.

So the question is would the queen start founding another colony or does she need the workers.

To me it seems the workers try to run away from that queen or they take care of the brood and don't take care of the queen.

I am sure the workers may be able to adapt. For example, queenless invicta workers separated without a queen for a few days will readily accept fertile queens that are a good candidate for a large colony, otherwise the queens will meet their end. Assuming it wasn’t a worker queen, they should readily accept the queen if put in a test tube.

[Ares9738]

Update: The workers are taking care of the original brood in the test tube but I noticed today they had a brand new clutch of eggs that was much smaller than the original cluster. I haven't seen the queen and she isn't with the ants and brood In the test tube, still I'd guess that the workers are taking care of her if she was healthy enough to lay another round of eggs. I don't think I will be separating them until I see how the new (first born in captivity) workers mix up the situation.

[LaniLyne0106]

Update: The workers are taking care of the original brood in the test tube but I noticed today they had a brand new clutch of eggs that was much smaller than the original cluster. I haven't seen the queen and she isn't with the ants and brood In the test tube, still I'd guess that the workers are taking care of her if she was healthy enough to lay another round of eggs. I don't think I will be separating them until I see how the new (first born in captivity) workers mix up the situation.

Yes keeping them together sounds like the best option here since they must be taking care of her. Keep us updated