tetramorium sp.e Queen housing conditions.

[Pastafacegrant]

Hi everyone, I need some help figuring out how too keep my tetramorium sp.e Queen happy. right now she probably has about eight workers and my nest is still in the mail. I've been keeping her in a dark place overtop of a closet door frame. I live in a basement apartment and its moist I need too keep a dehumidifier on in the bedroom because that's how bad it gets. I also live in central Ontario Canada so right now its just about winter. the temperature is around 15 -20degrees Celsius in the room she is kept. would my bathroom be a good place too keep the colony for now or would the temperatures rising and falling all the time harm her ? I have a lot more questions about my queen but I just want too start with this.

Thanks you

[Odontomachus]

Just try and keep her at a stable temp. not disturbing her too much and letting her deal with her workers on her own for a while should make her do good! In a little bit, when she has more(many more) workers, you may want to expose her to an outworld? If you want to.

[Serafine]

Tetramorium are very resilient. If she has just 8 workers you can keep her in a test tube in a dark place, the colony shouldn't move into a formicarium before it has at least 20 workers anyway, so don't worry. For the future it is best to keep the colony in a place with a relatively constant temperature. The room moisture isn't that important because in the nest it is going to be very different anyway. The only thing you should take care of is the barrier at the top of the outworld - the more humid the air is the faster these barriers loose their efficiency (which means you need to re-apply them more often).