Carpenter ants Help Please

[dlc200]

Hello I am going to buy myself a really nice (not one of them childrens) Ant farm I'm going to spend just over £100 on it..

The type of ant I want to buy is a Carpenter Ant (seen here) antsuk.com/camponotus-ligniperda

my question is... do they make nests in the ground? or will they just sit on top of the soil all day until they die?  :S

I am getting this to keep them in antsuk.com/ant-colony-starter-kit-c

it's gona have a nest and a large food/flatland area for them

but I do not want to get them if they can't dig and make nests...

[Wood~Ant]

Hi dcl200 and welcome to the Ant Hill.

Camponotus ligniperda have often proved rather difficult for me, as I have kept this species 3 times, and after a few months they all died. 

The reason was they dug into the soil and never seemed to come out again to forage for food. Why they should have done this I have no idea, because the colony of Camponotus nicobarensis I currently keep have done extremely well; and they are from the tropical jungles of Thailand, as you can read in my ant journals.

By all means try C. ligniperda, as you may be successful with them, but at the same time be aware they may not be very good foragers, at least not in the daylight hours.