The AntsCanada Ant Forum's

The ants will probably eat the honey if they find it and may decide to move out as a consequence of food outside. This may be risky because colonies thrive when there is more food. I hope the method works.

That is unfortunate. I hope that you can catch more queens later. I did not have a lot of colonies, but I think that this is relatively common. Many queens do not manage to found colonies, and therefore it is recommended to catch several.

Sorry for your loss.

One recommended method is to pour lemon juice mixed with water into the nest enterances (if you can find them) to make the ants move out. This should not harm them, but make them try to find a new home. This is a recommended method, but it did not work for me (I have the same problem). Maybe it will...

That makes sense, no easy method to calculate it.

In several places on this forum, I have seen people refer to the size of their colony. Is there any easy way to estimate the size of a colony held in captivity? Are there methods that would work for all species?

Social parasites are hard to keep. Unless you have a colony for it, you will probably not be able to keep it, because it needs to enter a colony to survive.

Okay, thank you for the help, I will consider getting baby powder, because it is easy to get.

I made my own outworld, and cut the holes for tubing roughly, what can I use to block them up, so that the ants cannot escape through there?

Okay, thank you for replying. The current setup will work then.

I have a small lasius niger colony (12 workers) and I have given them an outworld, giving them tiny air holes so that they can breathe. Later, I had to block the air holes up because the workers were so small, that they could get out. Is there any way that I can give them enough air but not let them...

The method mentioned did not seem to work. The ants did not relocate because of lemon juice. Are there any other ways I could make them relocate?