The AntsCanada Ant Forum's

Hello all,

I currently have a camponotus barbaricus queen, she did have workers but died shortly after arriving. She has been with me for a number of weeks now. I checked on her last night and she is still alive with eggs. Just a waiting game now.

She is currently located in my drawer (See image). I can assure that she is located in a place where it is slightly above room temp. I have heat mats and thermostats etc but I've never done anything like this before. Do I NEED to heat my queen/nest at all? If so, how would I go about that? Also, How do I make the nest humid once she is moved into a more natural setup?

Thanks for the help in advance.

Hello! Welcome to the forum
Keeping her just a few degrees above room temp is probably all she needs - it just speeds up brood development a bit. Once you have a larger colony, you can put the heat source on one end of the nest and create a temperature gradient. This way, ants can choose exactly how warm the brood need to be.
As far as humidity, that would depend on the nest you have. If you were to make a cork nest, you can apply the water directly to the walls and they will retain the moisture for a few days. Again, you are going to want to create a moisture gradient and let the ants pick where they want to be. Camponotus spp. in particular prefer things to be a little drier. This is great for us, as moisture creates mold!

This is a plaster nest I made in 2015. The little holes in the plexiglass are for pipette-ing in water. Most of the chambers with water-access are just hydration pits - meaning the ants didn't have access to the chamber. The water would soak into the plaster and increase humidity inside the nest. This is just for humidity; the ants need a constant water supply in the form of wet cotton.
I'm excited to hear how your queen does!

Gaazy123 wrote: ↑

Thu May 16, 2019 8:00 am

Hello all,

I currently have a camponotus barbaricus queen, she did have workers but died shortly after arriving. She has been with me for a number of weeks now. I checked on her last night and she is still alive with eggs. Just a waiting game now.

She is currently located in my drawer (See image). I can assure that she is located in a place where it is slightly above room temp. I have heat mats and thermostats etc but I've never done anything like this before. Do I NEED to heat my queen/nest at all? If so, how would I go about that? Also, How do I make the nest humid once she is moved into a more natural setup?

Thanks for the help in advance.

The workers probably died due to stress during transport. This is one of the reasons why we recommend sticking to native species and not buying them online.