Ants getting stuck in cotton

[Cale3459]

Anyone else have trouble with their ants getting stuck in the cotton? I think this is the third time this week. I end up removing the cotton and using my tweezers to gently remove the ant.

[Phoenix]

Mine does as well, but she usually gets unstuck on her own in the end.

[Martialis]

Are you sure that's a queen?

[Cale3459]

Are you sure that's a queen?

No that's one of my workers

[Martialis]

Yep. Sorry. I entirely missed the formicarium in the background the first time around.

[Cale3459]

Haha it's all good. I've got about 13 workers left after I had some die off after rescuing the colony(I'm sure due to stress). I've got 5 pupae right now and a few larvae and a large cache of eggs so I'm trying to keep every worker alive I can until they start replenishing faster than they are dying off. I have a journal if you want pictures. Just stressful when I see one caught and I know how low my numbers are haha. I left her alone for a day or two the first time to see if she could get loose and she didn't so now I remove the cotton and let her grab onto my tweezers to pry her loose as gently as I can.

[AntsSA]

I know that feeling of waiting for a full egg to worker cycle to happen in a rescued colony!

[ScaryBuh]

I use the back of a pencil to push the cotton to the water, that way the cotton is flat with less strings loose to entangle the ants.