Formica Lemani new released colony

[deansyme]

My small garden is nice, good sunlight, tidy, enclosed, its missing one feature to make it perfect...ants!
So today I release a small lemani colony into a large 20 litre wooden plant pot in which I have a small 15 cm pear tree sapling.
I made a small hole in the compost using a thin stick, opened the test tube and laid it beside the hole ( which is at the side of the pot ).
The first couple of workers were wary of the new surroundings at first but got braver and found the hole, almost instantly the queen was dragged down followed by her 20 plus workers, the eggs followed soon after.

I have taken the test tube out and let them get used to there surroundings. Some of the workers are already bringing soil up from the hole and expanding there new nest.

I intend to treat them like my other colonies and keep them well fed.
The reason I chose the pot is that we are planning in moving in a few months and hope they can come with me. Also my pear sapling could do with some guards against pests.

Will keep you all updated on this exciting colony.

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[deansyme]

Hope the video works

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[Wood~Ant]

Yes the video works fine. Were your lems using a rotavator to dig into the soil, as the background noise sounds very much like heavy digging machinery.

[deansyme]

It was our tumble dryer as had the kitchen door open lol

Up in st andrews today and went a walk and found two lemani nests there too collected 1 queen and some eggs and workers and left a queen in the nest.

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[deansyme]

Not much to report, can see nest expansion has been taking place but the have blocked nest entrance up.

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[deansyme]

Well I was beginning to worry that they had perished but today I seen two workers foraging. I followed them to a small hole inbetween two monoblock edgings used to edge a flower bed and dissapear down it.
So they seem to have decided that the planter wasnt up to scratch and moved house. Delighted they are well and gave them some honey.