Moving Brood to Tubing

[UserJB007]

Hello,

First time posting here! I've recently moved a colony of Camponotus Pennsylvanicus into the AC hybrid nest I purchased. I am an absolute amateur at keeping, but have been an ant nerd my entire life. They have been in for a few days now and am starting to notice daily patterns/routines.

Each morning they start to move the brood in all stages of development out of the nest and into a section of tubing. They do not move the entire brood, but about half. It remains this way for most of the day before they return it to the nest in the evening. I have two thoughts and am wondering if it's likely one, both, or something I'm not thinking of.

Temp. - The room they are kept in stays around 75F through the day. While I looking for a suitable heat source I am using a lamp at distance to attempt to warm the nest a bit. It's far enough away that this makes half of the nest warmer than the room. Could this be the reason?

Humidity - When I first placed the nest and wet the cotton media, I'm worried I added too much water for these ants. There is a fog over a large portion of the glass. I'm worried this has brought the humidity too high and they move the brood out as the house warms and the humidity rises too high. I've since removed the standing water in the reservoir to try and gradually bring this down. I've been guessing that this is the reason, but have no true idea.

ANY insight is welcome, and I'm excited to be trying my hand at keeping. This colony of about 50-60 workers moved into an indoor orchid overnight and needed to be removed. Living in a city, I hadn't seen a Camponotus flight in YEARS. I was able to successfully save the colony and am hoping to be successful

TY, Jeremy

[rakuichijou]

I think they need more humidity because some ants wanna put some eggs sometimes larvae in more humid area

[UserJB007]

But there wouldn't be more humidity in the tubes leading away from the formicarium? Right?

The nest is starting to dry out a bit more, so I'll see what they do in the coming days. Any other input would be welcome.

[UserJB007]

Hate to *bump* a post, but I am still looking for guidance with this update:

The media (a small amount of soil) that I have in the nest is almost dry now. The ants are still moving/keeping brood in the tubing outside of the nest. I'm not entirely complaining as it's been fun to watch more of what the ants are up to day to day. The queen is healthy and laying eggs in large clutches, workers are developing and hatching, everything seems okay other than this.

Should I just not stress and let them do their thing? Or should it be more of a concern that they are not using the nest provided primarily?

Thanks a ton again!

[Haze809]

Hard to say without a picture, or information on the current size of the colony.

I would say, either the nest is too moist or it is too big for the ants to “defend” and prefer a smaller area to keep the eggs. Then, when the eggs need humidity they bring it back to the nest.

My ants are doing about the same as yours. Most eggs are outside of the test tube but i do see them moving some in there for a little bit.

[UserJB007]

I will have to figure out how to post pictures here so I can share.

I'm estimating we are now up to 100 workers, 200 cocooned workers, and maybe 200 larva or so. All of those are conservative estimates. When they are in the nest they are only occupying the first 25% of the nest on the dry side.

Each evening they move the cocooned workers and larvae back into the nest. The only ones they leave in the tubing are the eggs and newly hatched larvae. They are in a cluster furthest from the nest. So bizarre, but everyone SEEMS healthy growing.