Stubborn M.rubra

[Gizzmosaurus]

The is mold in my m.rubra a test tube, she is in a tub and tube setup I have placed a clean test tube in the tub wich is covered and left her current moldy tube uncovered. It has been life that fir over a week and she doesn’t seem to care about it.
It is just the lone queen with some eggs, I didn’t hibernate her because she had no workers(I asked about that on here)
Should I just leave her in her uncovered test tube or cover it back up so she feels more comfortable.

[SolenopsisKeeper]

The is mold in my m.rubra a test tube, she is in a tub and tube setup I have placed a clean test tube in the tub wich is covered and left her current moldy tube uncovered. It has been life that fir over a week and she doesn’t seem to care about it.
It is just the lone queen with some eggs, I didn’t hibernate her because she had no workers(I asked about that on here)
Should I just leave her in her uncovered test tube or cover it back up so she feels more comfortable.

Ok I’m going to be straight. Mold does not bother my queens until Cotten is completly covered. Try heating her a little bit to speed up brood growth and cover her old one back up. My queen like that decided the glass was better for brood.

Cover her back up, heat her(optional), or you could dump her if it concerns you. If you leave it uncovered she could eat eggs.

[Gizzmosaurus]

I will cover her back up then because the mold is on food scraps that she has left on the other side of the test tube.
Thanks for the help

[SolenopsisKeeper]

I will cover her back up then because the mold is on food scraps that she has left on the other side of the test tube.
Thanks for the help

Best to remove food after a few days of putting it in

[Gizzmosaurus]

There are small pieces in the end of her test tubre

[SolenopsisKeeper]

There are small pieces in the end of her test tubre

She is probably storing it… one strategy to prevent storage of food to prevent mold, but a wasteful one, is to provide more than she can eat/carry. This makes them think their will be more next time, so there is no need to store it.

[terrellgriffin]

A new insect is what I have heard of but there is something in general that I will like to make sure of or point out to you. Whenever you consider that a species is not growing well or that it is not showing the best of the results, then you have to understand that there is something you are missing or not getting along the best. But at the very least, you need to consider the colonies that they live in and thus develop a similar habitat for them. Even if you cannot develop a good one, you need to take some help in this regard from the following extract from a research article regarding M. Rubra.
“M. Rubra colonies do not need a long season of high temperatures to complete their life cycles, in most habitats the ants do not become active until the end of April and are entering a pre-hibernation state by late September. They have active basal physiology (compared to many other Myrmica species) that has adapted to local environments in different parts of its range. Habitat selection seems to be determined by a trade-off between sufficient insolation to complete their life cycle and maintaining a high humidity within the soiled nest (assuming other factors such as food availability and nest site suitability are equal).
Thus at sea level in the more oceanic climates of Western Europe, woodlands are too cold in summer while east-facing meadows get too hot and dry whereas, in the much more continental climates of Eastern Europe, the hot summers enable them to live in woodlands that desiccate less rapidly than open meadows. Mountains, of course, make their own local climates so that for example, in the Carpathians populations favor more open meadow habitats at higher altitudes that are ecologically very similar to the prime habitat in Western Europe.”