I need help with my black crazy ant colony.

[JaydenScheepers]

https://imgur.com/gallery/vVkHRor

This is a wild colony of black crazy ants I caught, I found them in debris of sticks and leaves my father wanted me to take out, upon grabbing them I saw the colony scramble with all the brood. I decided to try and capture then, because I thought the brood and queens would be very vulnerable out in the open, plus they don't have the advantage of hiding the queens and brood deep in a nest while the workers defend. I have noticed with many black crazy ant colonies in my neighborhood that they don't often live in tunnels underground, and would much rather stay under rocks or leaves on the ground. I'm not completely sure what they eat, I've given them a termite, but they haven't eaten it yet. I did see they were eating a fly when I first found the colony, but I'm a bit reluctant to feed them caught flies, because I'm scared they may contain pesticides. What do you think?

[Antloverhuman]

Black crazy ants are more like kitchen scrap ants, as they will eat most the things you will throw away in the trash. They live under rocks or things like that because they dont live in the same place for more than a month (as far as my observation).
They probably weren't eating because they were in "what the hell happened to our house" and "where are we" mode. If they were eating a fly before, it means they would have been eating alot more flies in that area already, and because they are not dead yet it means the flies found in that area dont have pesticides. Also a big problem with wild caught bca is that they are very likely to have blood sucking mites. Usually in the wild they have access to all other natural stuff that would kill the mites but in an enclosed setup, the mites can spread crazy fast (no pun intended) so keep an eye on them, and if you see a worker with mites attached on its legs, separate it and KILL the ant.
Sometimes, there are other mites in the colony who aren't attached but just walk around. Those are good mites

Hope this post helps in some way. These are all based on my observation to black crazy ants that i have seen

[JaydenScheepers]

Black crazy ants are more like kitchen scrap ants, as they will eat most the things you will throw away in the trash. They live under rocks or things like that because they dont live in the same place for more than a month (as far as my observation).
They probably weren't eating because they were in "what the hell happened to our house" and "where are we" mode. If they were eating a fly before, it means they would have been eating alot more flies in that area already, and because they are not dead yet it means the flies found in that area dont have pesticides. Also a big problem with wild caught bca is that they are very likely to have blood sucking mites. Usually in the wild they have access to all other natural stuff that would kill the mites but in an enclosed setup, the mites can spread crazy fast (no pun intended) so keep an eye on them, and if you see a worker with mites attached on its legs, separate it and KILL the ant.
Sometimes, there are other mites in the colony who aren't attached but just walk around. Those are good mites

Hope this post helps in some way. These are all based on my observation to black crazy ants that i have seen

Alright thanks for the advice, so their like army ants in a way. They raid the area their in then move on the the next?
If I can remember correctly, blood sucking mites are red right? I'll be sure to keep an eye on them. I have also been seeing white mites on the test tubes of my colonies, they didn't get in and I wipe them off everytime I see them. Might they be dangerous by any chance? (No pun intended)

[Antloverhuman]

Kinda like army ants. They forage for a very long distance (like just one huge colony can forage in a radius of a yard!) They aren't very good hunters and mostly scavenge

[JaydenScheepers]

Kinda like army ants. They forage for a very long distance (like just one huge colony can forage in a radius of a yard!) They aren't very good hunters and mostly scavenge

Well luckily for them, I'll do all the hunting.

[SolenopsisKeeper]

Not really helpful but I found a colony who hollowed out a mushroom once, I saw a queen, went for it, but it slipped away into the grass.

[JaydenScheepers]

Not really helpful but I found a colony who hollowed out a mushroom once, I saw a queen, went for it, but it slipped away into the grass.

Small queens are always very hard to catch, their quick and small. I think the wingless queen is more dominant than the winged queen, it almost looks like the winged queen is crouching before the the wingless one.

[JaydenScheepers]

What do I do if I recently moved my black crazy ant colony into a new test tube and the start pulling at the cotton like crazy. Not that they'd get through any time soon, but uh.. their cluttering their living space with cotton. I gave them a small piece of mealworm so hopefully that'll calm them.

[JaydenScheepers]

Alright so they've stopped relentlessly pulling at the cotton, however I've discovered something quite odd. They seem to have produced a drone, maybe one of the queens are infertile. I don't know if this behavior is normal for young black crazy ant colonies since their queens can clone themselves and the drones they mated with.