Formicarufa wrote: ↑Thu Apr 23, 2020 1:40 pm
My ants pull the cotton from the dry side
I dig a little bit of digging about pulling cotton in general, wet or dry, and there's a couple of reasons. One is like why mine do it, to organize their space, to make an area for garbage away from the brood, etc. Another reason might be, as the first ants of the colony, that they're trying to get out of their claustral cell (in this case, the test tube) to go look for food, since the oldest ants need to go foraging for food once they're old enough, otherwise everyone will starve because the queen doesn't have any more food stores to care for herself and the brood. Even if you're feeding them, they might still feel compelled to do this.
I'm pretty new to ant keeping, and my first 2 colonies are actually formica subsericea, not lasius like I originally thought, so I'm lacking on the specifics for your species, but I hope this helps with some ideas on why they're still pulling the cotton.