Tapinoma sessile colony

[MacSuibhne]

Hey y'all. This is my first post here, but I've accidentally gathered a fairly large colony of coconut/odorous/sessile ants over the past few hours, and trying to figure out where to go from here.

The story: We've had them invading two stories of our house since the weather broke into the 90s a few weeks ago, and I realized they were aphid farming/nesting in the alocasia pots while i was watering today. I had a 3g glass jar with some dried clay soil and perlite laying around -- so i tied a string to a bamboo stake in the jar, wrapped the other end around the plant, and left a tablespoon of honey on top of the substrate.

Well, 4 hours later and i seem to have 50+ queens, thousands of larvae and who knows how many ants, the colony going so far as to pull at least a sizable percentage of itself out of our walls.

What now? They're clearly polygynous so I doubt I've captured the whole colony, but this is way more than i naively assumed would follow my lead.

I should mention that I've been really wanting to turn my 90g aquarium into a nice paludarium, and I'm reading that this species likes warmth and high humidity. Compatible aims?

Or should i just walk them outside and hope they run to the neighbor's house?

-Oisín

[antnest8]

i am currently keeping a tapinoma sessile colony. its smaller though with about 30 workers and 1 queen. Really i would think it would be a great idea for a paludarium for these ants. mine have some difficulty's like all colonies, such as trying to get the queen to lay more brood and the ants being picky with their food. Both of these problems should be solved for you by just having a big colony and many queens.

but your choice.