Colony Facing Destruction- Please help!

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Zebesian

Colony Facing Destruction- Please help!

Post: # 25510Post Zebesian
Tue Jul 18, 2017 5:39 pm

First things first- hello! My name's Zeb. I joined up here because I have fallen in love with ants and need your help to figure out how to save a local colony!

Initially my gf and I were going to try to hunt down a queen when the Tetramorium nuptial flights happened here in the Seattle area. I mentioned this in passing while I was catching up with my mom ('cause I've really caught the ant love hard, here) and all the ant talk reminded her of some ants she found in the house. She walked me out to her driveway where she showed me a very clearly visible colony of what I'm pretty sure were Tetramorium nesting between the cracks in her driveway and her rockery.

Now here's the sad part- she's been trying to kill them! She's apparently sprayed the entrances with raid a couple of times in the past month and plans on continuing to do this until she succeeds in killing the colony. Luckily for the poor ants I think she just got some more visible side entrances because upon closer inspection I noticed their main entrance was hiding away in the shade of a bush.

Well anyway, I tried talking my mom out of the nuclear option in regards to this colony but she's not having it and since my gf and I were going to start a colony anyway and of literally the same species it feels like attempting to rehome the colony might be for the best.

I know normally this isn't the best option at all for starting an ant colony but in this case where they are definitely dead if they stay where they are much longer I think it's worth the effort. This is why I need help! As far as I can tell there are two options:

1. Move the cinderblocks they're nesting under and try to scoop up the queen if the nest is shallow, then gather the workers. If the queen isn't visible digging is needed which I am VERY hesitant to do. I don't want to end up hurting her and the entire colony dying.

2. Flood the colony to make them surface. I've heard filling the colony with water doesn't kill the ants, it just forces them out. If that's the case this sounds much safer for the ants. I also saw a video on youtube where someone took literally a single glass of water and squeezed a half of a lemon into it, then inserted a syringe filled with this lemon water and squirted it down the ants' hole a couple times. The entire colony fled within minutes! I know ants have an aversion to citrus so if this is a way to get them to leave without flooding the entire colony (I don't know how risky that is or is not) that would be wonderful!

So yes, which would be the best plan for Tetramorium? I also need to know how to house them in the interim month or so before I can get them a proper fornicarium. I'm planning on ordering the Tetramorium kit for them from the AntsCanada website but since they are so backordered there's no speedy option!

Sorry if anything I said is ant-ignorant. That's why I'm here, I want to do whatever is safest and best for these ants to make sure their colony continues to thrive! Also, just to make sure I've ID'd the ants correctly here are some pictures of them I took with my cellphone camera.

https://i.imgur.com/o7Eid9e.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/592gd9I.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/N62s62F.jpg

Thanks so much for any and all help in advance!

carsonman99

Re: Colony Facing Destruction- Please help!

Post: # 25521Post carsonman99
Tue Jul 18, 2017 6:49 pm

These are definitely tetramorium and personally I've tried the lemon syringe method to get rid of a colony tearing up our driveway and the colony just went crazy outside for about and hour and went back to normal life in the same spot. Flooding with water definitely works and ants are very hardy when it comes to flooding so that's my suggestion. Either flood them or just life the concrete and scoop the queen and a few workers. Also leave them some sugar and protein sources in whatever container you put them in and let them settle overnight

Zebesian

Re: Colony Facing Destruction- Please help!

Post: # 25527Post Zebesian
Tue Jul 18, 2017 7:11 pm

Okay! It's a plan! I suppose I can always lift the blocks first and if the queen isn't visible go to flooding as a plan B.

You said scoop some of the workers, should I aim to get some brood, etc too or will the queen happily continue producing enough workers in her new home?

Also since the new home is just temporary until I can get a more professional set up- what do I need to look out for? I hear tetramorium are a great starter species because they're hardy- does that mean I can just get some dirt from the yard and a tupperware, mist it once in awhile for the month or two that I'll have to wait for the fornicarium to come in the mail and they'll survive just fine? I'd feel really bad if they ended up croaking while waiting for a suitable home in the mail.

Also- also- and this may just be me being paranoid but- as we're still in the tail end of mating season what do I do if the colony contains alates while evacuating? That seems like it would certainly make it harder to find the true queen during the evacuation. Would the best thing to do then be to look for a wingless queen? Do I just make super sure to grab any and all alates?

carsonman99

Re: Colony Facing Destruction- Please help!

Post: # 25533Post carsonman99
Tue Jul 18, 2017 7:35 pm

Definitely get some pupae and larvae if you can also I'd aim for maybe 20ish workers to ensure her survival. I would put a test tube set up in a plastic container (add substrate if you'd like) the test tube offers them a home with moisture and the container an outworld for foraging. As for alates just leave them be they won't do anything for the colony and can't have nuptial flight in the controlled environment. So just grab the queen which will not have any wings. Also I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) tetramorium can have multiple queens so go ahead and grab multiple if they're present.

Zebesian

Re: Colony Facing Destruction- Please help!

Post: # 25571Post Zebesian
Wed Jul 19, 2017 12:06 am

Well we gave it a try tonight and things did not go well. We definitely greatly underestimated the size of the colony, it probably goes completely under the road. I feel bad for disturbing them but on the bright side theres no way a can of raid is going to take them down.

There were also a ton, tooooon of alates in there! All of the alates of a species fly together, right? So even if something does happen to this colony I can still expect Tetramorium flights in my area soon, correct?

carsonman99

Re: Colony Facing Destruction- Please help!

Post: # 25592Post carsonman99
Wed Jul 19, 2017 7:30 am

Yeah after rainfall that colony may go flying so be on the lookout. I caught my tetramorium queen on top of my car early in the morning, she was stuck in a small droplet of water. I'm assuming she was apart of the nuptial flight from all the colonies on our driveway.

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