Alright snow land surgery complete! I'm really glad I went in there, because it assuaged all my concerns about the prenos. One, they'd organized a lot more since a few days ago, so the mold didn't look nearly as bad as it did then (when they had the bodies scattered basically everywhere except the immediate water tower area).
In fact I decided to not even go into the top chamber of their bifurcated, and was able to slide the glass aside to quickly clean out the main chamber instead.
Unfortunately I didn't grab any pictures during, especially because the queen very quickly started running along the glass looking for escape. But this is the aftermath and the putty-qtip tool I used:
I got a good look at the crew and if I counted correctly it looks like they haven't lost a single girl over winter! And they were all fatty to the max, so I won't worry about their eating at all now.
I think I'll leave them in the cooler for another month-ish at the top temp of 64 degrees and hope they come into May with a pile of summer eggs ready to go into estivation.
Meanwhile the picea ladies also came out today, but I'll wait until they're warmed up and settled back into the ant shelf to take some update pics.
Edited by m99, April 4 2022 - 10:48 AM.