Ants congregating in outworld

[brikhouse4]

My camponotus colony is now in it's third year and finally starting to explode in growth. I don't know if this is related to the growth, but I've increasingly noticed a number of workers congregating on one of the features in the outworld. They're not exploring, just hanging out and sitting there, almost like they were inside the nest.

My ants have always been bad about removing their waste and have quite a trash pile inside the nest which has led to some mold issues. I thought once the colony had more workers they'd clear out the trash pile. But when I noticed the ants hanging out in the outworld day after day, I had to assume they felt the nest was too cramped (they're in a 4x4 camponotus hybrid nest). So I hooked up a small backup nest to the hybrid as a satellite nest. Now I see them just dragging more of their food waste into the satellite nest, and the outworld still has the gang congregating. They deposit a good portion of their waste in the outworld and I'm pretty good about cleaning that up so I don't think they're tendency to keep waste in the nest is due to a lack of disposal options.

I'm not sure what is going on, anyone have any experience with this one? Should I be concerned or just let them hang out and not worry about it?

Thanks!

[idahoantgirl]

I too have been noticing that my tetramorium ants have one chamber almost filled with trash. They take up about half the nest right now. What can I do to get them to move the trash out? I also have a hybrid nest.

[AntsSA]

They will clean it when they need the space usually, my small phiedole colony has s trash piles in the nest.