Lunk's Formicariums

 So, when I am doing hobby things I often forget 2 things.. 1. Time... 2. Taking photos... What happened... Queen moved from the funky tube-setup she came in to a fresh test-tube setup. I left the dark cover off the old tube and put it on the new one overnight, so slowly increasing light intensity from the rising sun would be the 1st (indirect) light they saw. When I woke up they had moved to the clean new tube. I created a smaller out-world for this tiny 10 worker Lasius Niger colony then posted in a previous post. Hooked it all up and here it is... Yes, the test-tube is under the dark cover (microfiber black sun-glasses cover sack thingy.)

After advice from Full_Frontal_Yeti on the formiculture.com Forums... I was 1st planning on keeping the new Lasius Niger colony in a small nest until the 1st hybernation period in just a cotainer and tubes nest. But as he advised he Ants will show much more interesting and natural behaviour when they have a outworld with plenty (not too much) space. So I bought a small food container to make a simple 1st outworld... Bigger and later outworlds will be 100% DIY ;) The food storage container for the outworld: Sand for bottom substrate thoroughly washed and cooked for 10 minutes to kill all fungii and parasites, now drying in the sun: Gathered some rocks and dead wood for decoration of the outworld, I disinfected the wood by putting it in the microwave for a minute. Here is the result for now, when the Ants arrive (Wednesday says the post info) I will put the Lasius Niger colony tube in here once they have settled after the mail journey (a few days after arrival. 0.3 mm holes drilled al a...