I am a bit into having this colony and only until recently were they identified. I have had this colony in a Mini Hearth for a while but the progress with them has been very odd. I read that some ants do better in soil, so with that i decided to use an old fish aquarium as a house for them. at the time, i did not have a clay additive to the setup. Just some nice potting soil that had no chemical additives. I put the Hearth in the fish tank and a few of the workers started digging. Overnight they moved everybody in. all seemed well. I added probably 2 feet of vinyl tubing as a means of letting them forage/stretch their legs. well as time went on, they were taking any food. i do not know if they were eating springtails or not but i have seen them try to catch them in their newest setup. 2 of the nanintics ended up dying during their stay. Very little activity...even at night which is when they are supposedly most active. i was able to get them back in the Hearth nest and they went back to their old ways of not accepting food. they did however decide to hunt fruit flies. Finally, there was something they were interested in. i tried wax worms, mealworms, dubia roach, fish food...just not human food. for sugars they love the red hummingbird nectar. which all of my ants adore. So no problems when it comes to sugars.
i started to drop lesser mealworms/baby wax worms in the opening of the Hearth. they finally would eat what was dropped in there. shortly after, i noticed a new batch of eggs. i only dropped it in because i tried leaving the dead bugs in the outworld but they would just smell it then walk away. whatever...ill spoil them a little/help them out. All the while though, i wanted them back in dirt soley because it gives other ants something to do as in dig. I've been purchasing the food containers from Walmart because they have different sizes to suit colony size. My other Formica species are doing great in theirs. i also wanted to get a bit of clay in the soil setup so i purchased the zoo med excavator clay burrowing substrate to mix with the same potting mix i use with extra sand, bark, and pumice rocks as a drainage layer. i drill one hole into the container with the half inch bit so that i can use a bigger vinyl tube for them to carry things back to their nest. packed all the substrate and poked two holes in the surface. dropped the minihearth on the top and took off the glass viewing screen and popped out the plugs. withing 5 minutes, ants were looking around. i had put in 2 liquid feeders and they started drinking from them. 1 ant discovered the bigger of the 2 holes i poked and went into its depths. i left and came back a few hours later. the queen, brood, and the butlers of the brood were still in the hearth but, of the 11 workers i have, 7 of them were digging.
the next morning, the hearth had been evacuated. i was counting 8 workers still digging, taking out chunks of the clay/potting soil mix. since my area is on clay, i figured maybe this is more of the medium they needed. i did drop i very small wax worms on to the surface and they smelled it and just kept excavating. possibly just busy. i came back and hour later and seen the wax warm had been squeezed of its juices. seems like they already had their way with it, so i dropped another in there and two of them instantly when to it and brought it back into the hole. seems like the new nest has perked them up. the feeders have been drained a little which is a good sign. i love that the ants are actually doing something. having them be idle just didn't seem right. i won't be able to track what is going on inside the nest but i can assume they will get to the sides of the container soon since it isn't that big. All in all, i think this new move is worth it. they have been digging the past two days.
i apologize i don't have more photos, but i am trying to be better about that. ill be happy to explain more about the containers i make, and i also make outworlds for cheap if anybody is interested.
