Accidentally found a nest, what should I do now?

Temporary placeholder

Moderators: ooper01, Trusted User

Locked
BuckeyeAntLover
Posts: 20
Joined: Tue May 02, 2017 5:36 pm
Location: Ohio

Accidentally found a nest, what should I do now?

Post: # 22698Post BuckeyeAntLover
Sat Jun 10, 2017 12:08 pm

To anyone out there I need some quick advice. A few weeks ago along the side of the shed there was a pile of bricks and there were some ants coming out so I started to move the bricks and it was a humongous ant colony. Today we built a compost pile next to the pile of bricks however, when I moved the bricks there were no ants in there so I figured they had moved on. I started to transfer the compost that has been in barrels that were next to the bricks, into the compost pile, and lo and behold there were the ants, hundreds of them. I wondered where the queen was but I figured there was no chance of finding her. About the 10th scoop of compost transfer, I looked down into the barrel because I felt so bad, and as I said my apologies to the ants that were scurrying around, there was the grand queen. I quickly captured her and brought her inside and put her in a container and I've gone back out and made two trips so far to collect workers. I have them all in the refrigerator right now and it's about 45 or 50° in there so they're sleeping, but the only thing I have to put them in is a tiny ant farm and the top opening isn't even a quarter of an inch. I do have a bit larger ant farm that I want to clean out real quick to put the rest of them in and then connect the 2 ant farms, however I'm just having issues trying to get them into the ant farms before they wake up. Does anybody have a sure fire method of how I can transfer them all into there without them waking and escaping? I'm almost positive they are camponotus pennsylvanicus, and they are big. And also, what's the longest I can keep them in the refrigerator without causing harm?

User avatar
idahoantgirl
Posts: 1521
Joined: Sat Sep 12, 2015 11:52 am
Location: Idaho, USA

Re: Accidentally found a nest, what should I do now?

Post: # 22716Post idahoantgirl
Sat Jun 10, 2017 2:30 pm

What do you mean by "ant farm". Gel? sand? formicarium?How many workers/ brood did you capture?
Proverbs 6:6-8

Go to the ant, you sluggard;
consider its ways and be wise!
It has no commander,
no overseer or ruler,
yet it stores its provisions in summer
and gathers its food at harvest.

Keeping Tetramorium immigrans, Tapinoma Sessile

User avatar
Batspiderfish
Posts: 3315
Joined: Wed Jun 29, 2016 3:47 pm
Location: Maine

Re: Accidentally found a nest, what should I do now?

Post: # 22735Post Batspiderfish
Sat Jun 10, 2017 4:07 pm

To answer the question about moving ants, it's best to place all of them in a foraging arena/outworld connected to the nest they will be living in (you can't just keep them in an ant farm, they need a place to look for food and dispose of garbage.) They will move themselves to where they feel most comfortable, which is hopefully the nest.
If you enjoy my expertise and identifications, please do not put wild populations at risk of disease by releasing pet colonies. We are responsible to give our pets the best care we can manage for the rest of their lives.

BuckeyeAntLover
Posts: 20
Joined: Tue May 02, 2017 5:36 pm
Location: Ohio

Re: Accidentally found a nest, what should I do now?

Post: # 22768Post BuckeyeAntLover
Sat Jun 10, 2017 7:30 pm

Thank you for the input, I wasn't expecting this to happen all of the sudden, so I'm gonna make some upgrades to be more accommodating.

Locked

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest