Odontomachus brunneus question

[Skyshadow3246]

I recently purchased an Odontomachus brunneus queen. She arrived with a single worker a week ago on the 5th but sadly no eggs. So far she hasn't laid any but I am not too worried after being shipped.

Upon arrival I added some moist soil/sand mixture to the tube floor and offered her and her worker chopped meal worms. They didn't seem very interested which again I wasn't too surprised about. I offered prekilled fruit flies three days later. I never saw them eat anything but their gasters might have grown a bit, it's so hard to tell with their body shape!

I offered 2 partially killed fruit flies and a fully dead one next. They carried the two partially alive ones deeper into the tube and I believe I saw the queen eating one on Wednesday so that was very exciting.

My question: is it too early to offer a very small out world? I have supplies to make one roughly 10cm x 7cm (4.3" x 2.7"). That way I am not constantly needing to disturb the tube to change out food. I'm aiming to feed 2 to 3 times a week and that's a lot of messing with the tube.

This is my first time dealing with a non-harvester species (my other queens are all Messors) and I want to be sure I do the best I can. I am keeping the back of the test tube substrate (closest to the water cotton) moist and the substrate at the front dry so they have a gradient. The dry side is at 29c (85F) and the water side is room temperature. The Queen and worker seem to mostly stay on the moist side. I haven't seen any indication of cotton pulling which I would normally take as an indicator to add the out world.

[Skyshadow3246]

It's been too long to edit but when I came home today the queen was holding an egg!
https://imgur.com/a/60fiE8a

[SYUTEO]

No, it's not too early to offer a small outworld, some people even give them an outworld when raising the queen. With Odontomachus, most species tend to ignore big and prekilled items, they tend to accept small live or moving prey. Flightless fruit flies, pinhead crickets and turkestan roaches should work great. Most Ponerines also tend to ignore sugars but sometimes they will accept.

[Skyshadow3246]

Is it safe to offer live in their tube or should I wait until the out world is made? I will have my husband pick up a pinhead tomorrow at work to offer variety. I know these ladies tend to go off food quite quickly!

[SYUTEO]

The thing with crickets is they can sometimes attack your ants and their brood when they aren't killed immediately so I wouldn't recommend leaving them in the tube unattended for too long. It is safer to use fruit flies if you don't want to patiently wait for them to hunt.