I have a few ideas, but the one I'm most curious about is making an ant nest (almost) completely out of hot glue. I have heard of people using hot glue to stick glass or acrylic panels to their ant nests, using it for sticking tubing to outworlds, stick test tubes down and all sorts of stuff, so I know there are some ant-safe types of hot glue.
My thoughts are that it wouldn't mold as quickly as plaster would, as it doesn't retain moisture as well, and that it would be easy to make and cheap to get. If I were to make a mistake, all I would need is to heat up whatever I bunged up and re-do or re-work it.
There are definitely some species of ant that could chew through it, but I have no plans on housing them in it. I would try it with L. Niger ants first, to see what damage they can do to it.
The hot glue wouldn't be completely transparent, but I would be using a glass pane for the window anyway.
Does anyone see any blatant issues with this that I'm missing? I haven't seen it done before, so there is some level of risk to doing this, and that's why I felt like asking here first. Has anyone done it? Thoughts? Any ideas? I will make a new thread with what it looks like when (if) I do it. No heat mats will be used with it, nor close lights. I would monitor the nest when it's done in the spot I would keep the ants with it to see how it does, and I will be using two spots on opposite sides from each other for the humidity, I would want to see how easily the hot glue molds.
Even if it goes bad, at least it will give me some practice with working with hot glue
