Should I move my ants to their formicarium?

[Deoix9877]

I got a queen ant at around the begining of january of this year. She spent until spring hibernating, and then started laying eggs. Now she has around 6 workers, but the rate at wich they appear seems to be very slow. there are eggs, but also very low numbers.

For what I read and was told, I was suposed to wait until she had at least 10 workers to conect the test tube to their formicarium and that I wasn't supposed to feed her during this time, but I'm worried that after all this time the queen may be too starved and she has already used up all the muscle tisue from her wings. It's been almost six months with her eating nothing, and with how slow workers are apearing I'm afraid it's because she's at her limit.

Should I just connect the tube to the formicarium with the current number of workers so I can feed them? It's my first time keeping ants, and I would hate it if it ended with the queen dead even before getting them out of the test tube.

[AntsLuxembourg]

You don't have to connect her to a formicarium. You can also keep her in the testtube and feed her in there but of course doing some regular clean up. Maybe start with a droplet of honey.

[Deoix9877]

ok, it took some work, cause a few of the ants were very adamant on staying on the entrance cotton so I couldn't just remove fully, but I managed to squish in a drop of honey. They seem to have instantly liked it, even the queen herself went and spent a good 5 minutes drinking directly from it, wich surprised me since I asumed the workers would feed her

I took the chance to also take a good look at em, since I had been keeping them in a drawer in the dark for most of this time only checking periodically. turns out there were only 5 workers, guess I counted one twice last time. I couldn't see any eggs, and there were only 2 larvae, but they might have hidden them in the cotton, can't really tell

how often should I put more food in? and should I also try to put in something with protein or for now just the honey is good?

[catsandants]

Feed them in the test tube and once you have about 5-7 workers give them a test tube portal so they can have more space.

[AntsLuxembourg]

I think you didn't mention what species you keep. But you can offer some honey once per week if you like. Also I would guess that the colony is a bit thirsty. If you have a syringe you can try to add some water on the dried up cotton. They may need it for the humidity. For the rest I can only stick to the same old sentence. Get them into a new testtube with water.

[Deoix9877]

sadly I got her as a gift, and my sister didn't bother to ask the species to the person she got her from. I know there are people that can tell the species, but my camera doesn't really have too high resolution. this is the best I could do

https://ibb.co/fq4XTYj

https://ibb.co/Hh4mFD2

I belive one of the ants is dead, wich is making me worry even more. the water is running kinda low and there is a bit too much mold. I have this setup I could conect the tube into, that would let me place food in and also has a new tube for water, but I'm afraid the space might be a bit too big for just the 5 (or well, now maybe posibly 4) ants

https://ibb.co/Hh4mFD2https://ibb.co/9srx6L8

I know I could order a test tube setup from the webpage, but seeing how things are going I don't know if I can afford to wait for it to be delivered. I don't know what to do, I don't wanna check on them too much cause I know it can stress them, but I'm getting a bit desperate

[AM1C39]

You can move them into the nest, then take the test tube and plug the entrance to the nest, clean and add new water to the test tube, then put it back, if the ants move back into the test tube remove the nest and keep them in the test tube for as long as possible. I would also suggest getting about 5 new test tubes and they look like something from the genus messor.

[AntsLuxembourg]

I had to move my lasius niger colony yesterday too. It was due to the mold on the cotton and because the water started to look really nasty. I force moved them as I usually do. Of course trying to get all the eggs and workers without harm over.