Covering brood with cotton?

[TMoneyAnts]

My camponotus colony continue to cover their brood with cotton. I will go in and use a barbecue stick to drag at the mixed together cotton and brood sorts out the eggs larvae and pupae and put them back in for the ants to collect you can guess how tedious this is all for them to start right back at ripping the cotton from their test tube and doing it again.. what should I do?

[SYUTEO]

Is the test tube too moist? They may be using the cotton to soak up the extra humidity on the brood to prevent them from drowning or causing mold.

[TMoneyAnts]

Is the test tube too moist? They may be using the cotton to soak up the extra humidity on the brood to prevent them from drowning or causing mold.

They are in a open test tube set up where the tube is placed into an outworld so the tube is open. I do not believe it is too moist I cannot see any condensation

[SYUTEO]

So, that probably means that they are trying to keep the brood slightly moist so that they don't dry out. Or they may be using it as a scaffolding to allow the pupae to spin cocoons.