Should I feed my Tetramorium queens?

[AntChuck]

I have roughly 30-40 tetramorium queens... I rescued them from death in my swimming pool where they likely had spent the night. Unfortunately I was headed to vacation and didnt have time to properly place them in test tubes as i had no extra on hand. I left them in a plastic jar with a few leaves for them to hide under and a sponge that had been soaked with water. I was gone for 10 days and to my amazement when I returned only 4 queens had perished however the jar had mold likely caused from the 30+ sets of shed wings, the few dead queens and decaying leaves. I assumed more were dead initially and grabbed a very small glass jar to transfer them into temporarily however when i started i noticed a far greater number of live and amazingly mated queens than anticipated and much to my amazement a very large clump of eggs (at least a couple hundred). I managed to transfer the bulk of the primary cluster of eggs as well as all queens but had to move them again in order to better give them water. They are still laying large numbers of eggs however my test tubes dont arrive till Tuesday. Once i place them into their own individual tubes should i feed them initially to replenish protein supplies lost from the initial egg laying? Also i have an AC small tower ordered and plan to transfer 3 of the queens and all the current brood i can into. What should i feed a tetramorium queen?

[Whitelotus]

I would wait until the first workers begin to appear. The queens have food reserves to get them through until the first batch of workers appear. When you plan on feeding them later on, I recommend feeding them recently killed or fresh feeder insects such as mealworms or crickets. From the other posts you have put on this site, it sounds as if you have quite the journey with your queens.

[AntChuck]

I would wait until the first workers begin to appear. The queens have food reserves to get them through until the first batch of workers appear. When you plan on feeding them later on, I recommend feeding them recently killed or fresh feeder insects such as mealworms or crickets. From the other posts you have put on this site, it sounds as if you have quite the journey with your queens.

Yes you are correct and tetramorium immigrans are not a species I have kept in the past. When I was younger I successfully kept a big headed ant species, RIFA, carpenter ants and various other colonies but I lived in NC at the time now in my adult life I live in WI and am limited to what I can catch in my back yard. I'm very fond of brood boosting but due to tetramorium fondness for living in pavement cracks and foundations I cant exactly do that lol... well if I knew my fiancee wouldn't kill me I would but yeah.