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[JDSweetBeat]

Hey, I recently went to a local park and started poking around the rotting base of a long-ago cut-down tree. I pulled it apart, and found a colony of Solenopsis Molesta with easily 20-30k workers (probably more, as I pulled the tree stump apart to the ground level and every part of the stump was filled to the brim with ants and brood) and hundreds of queen alates (no males unfortunately, as I've heard that this species occasionally practices inbreeding when conditions for growth are right) and what looked like dozens of dealate queens.

I'm assuming the reason they were able to reach such a huge colony size is because there were no large colonies of other species in the whole park (the park authorities probably eradicate large anthills if I had to guess, and the tree stump is pretty inconspicuous and perfect for a colony to nest in). Regardless, I filled a few test tubes to the brim with tree shreds/powder, workers, brood, and as many dealate and alate queens as I could fit, plugged them with cotton balls and brought them home (yes, they do sting when you stick your hand into their nest, no the stings aren't that bad, especially if you have callouses on the parts they are stinging).

I have an old small AntsCanada solenopsis formicarium that I dumped them, their brood, their alates, and their queens and digging medium into.

Now the biggest issue I'm facing is that the captured portion of the colony is probably big enough that I'll need an outworld for them to dispose of waste and collect food from, and I read that they are escape artists. I'd like to avoid getting stuck with the bill to de-infest my apartment complex, so I'm wondering if anybody has any experience with keeping large thief ant colonies, and if so, what you used for the outworld and how you were able to contain them (I've read that even fluon isn't effective in keeping them contained).