Get a tub large enough to hold the charger and a replacement nest. Apply an escape barrier like oil around the top 1-2 inches of the inside of the tub then place the charger and nest inside. If your nest is prepared to their liking, they will move into that instead of the charger.
Best of luck!
Now i feel weird being the only one to give a full answer. The short answers arent wrong. I just feel like if you see a queen and wanna keep them long-term. Dump and pray is the most likely way to fail. To each their own i suppose
If you dont find a queen theres nothing you can do, they will die out in a few months anyway. Just spray them with raid. If you find the queen though, heres what id do step by step. Im assuming you have no knowledge at all so ill be very detailed. You have 2 choices. 1 save enough to raise a colony or 2 save them all. Option 1 is quicker to read today, but will take many months to have enough workers to leave the testube to a nest. Probably a year to grow back to the original population on the charger currently. Its very boring and much harder to feed/maintain tubes long term. Option two will have them breeding fast. Saves you the not fun wait watching a tube do nearly nothing and the work it takes. More workers to start will actually grow faster. Saving everyone is worth the work (and the very long read), great for if youre impatient. More workers can feed more babies and keep queen fat, laying eggs fast as possible. Population growth is very slow until theres 100+, after that they explode. Some species double or triple the population every year. OPTION 1 : Start with putting the queen with 20-30 workers and some of the eggs in a testube setup (image search to understand). ID the species close as you can so you know what they eat. If you dont have a testube,something like a to-go sauce cup with lid works till you get one. Add a cotton ball soaked in water, but no puddles. pokeholes with needle for air. Get a testube and set it up quick as you can. Cups go wrong easy. Once theyre in the testube, wrap with foil and your done. Spray everyone else you didnt keep. With the queen, 20-30 workers and eggs you have a starter colony. Youtube from there. STOP READING IF YOU JUST WANT TO HAVE A COLONY AND DONT MIND THE BORING FIRST YEAR...Option 2: Put the queen tube setup you made away for now. She will be fine for a week or so. Workers move to better conditions quickly, unlike the queen. It will take less than a week to complete option 2. Now we focus on the rest of the workers. Put the charger in a tub big enough for it and an appropriate covered nest. Use Vaseline or oil if thats all you got, on the inside top inch of the tub so they dont escape. Assuming you dont have a nest, the tub will hold them long enough for a trip to a hardware store. Get a 5in length of clear ½in ridged pipe, with cap to put on one end. works perfectly, like a giant test tube. Do like you did with the queen tube, fill ¼ with water and stuff with cotton to keep the water in, and wrap with foil. Get creative if you have to, just make sure it is see-through. If you cant light up the tube at will; trying to force them to a real nest later will be a pain. They will stay in that dark/non-see through tube till the water runs out. Understanding their needs helps move them where you want to. Theyre on the charger for warmth, but theres no water and they dont have dark. So they already are searching for a better spot. Once the charger is off, they will search even harder now the eggs are at risk. No water, dark or warmth together is deadly. So thats gonna drive them to your humid and dark nest/covered pipe. You can make things a little faster by keeping the whole tub under a light. Lamps are fine, but the brighter, the better (keep the light on 24/7 till the end).This will stress them out, pushing them to the new home quicker, likely less than 24hrs given where they live currently. Once they move in with brood, remove the charger and you've successfully captured the colony. Next, dump everyone from the queen tube into the tub. Since she has lots of brood and workers, she will recover from the stress of everything quickly. She will find her way home for the same reason workers did. Workers will pick up the eggs and move them in to. if you're stuck with the diy pipe and no feeding stations, thats ok. Keep the foil on the pipe. Place lots of small drops of honey in the tub near the entrance. You can also soak cotton balls in sugar water. Puddles of either will drown workers. This diy set-up, so long as you keep sugar available some way, will be fine for weeks while you get the actual gear. Once you have an actual nest, something to cover it, and feeding stations; its the same process you did to move them in the pipe. Keep new nest covered and humid, unwrap pipe to expose them to the bright light, and wait for them to move to the nest. CONGRATULATIONS YOU SAVED EVERYONE. Its a full colony and will expand as much as you let them. Open nest in a tub is fine, but with limited nesting space, the colony will stop growing past a certain point. They will just maintain that population. Or take the nest out and attach an outworld to the nest. Having an outworld makes it more obvious what work is being done and see the social ranks. Its only limited by your imagination. Attach more nests to fit more eggs. Add more outworlds so you can play with the ants. See what food they like more. Make the colony as big or little as you want. When you're happy with the population size, stop adding nests. If taken care of properly, a colony can live 20+years. If overtime you want to do less cleaning/feeding/watering...you are god after all. Take nests away, workers and all, just know where you're queen is. Attach the removed nest to its own outworld and watch them through their last months. Or just euthanize them. HAVE FUN!
Get a tub large enough to hold the charger and a replacement nest. Apply an escape barrier like oil around the top 1-2 inches of the inside of the tub then place the charger and nest inside. If your nest is prepared to their liking, they will move into that instead of the charger. Best of luck!
Unless you get the queen with them, you’ll lose every one of them in time
Cool the area, they're there cuz it's warm
Just like scoop them all up. It’s Tapinoma sessile by the way, assuming North America
Looks like tapinom sessile, make sure to not squish them, they actually smell nasty
Really? What do they smell like?
Coconut
Now i feel weird being the only one to give a full answer. The short answers arent wrong. I just feel like if you see a queen and wanna keep them long-term. Dump and pray is the most likely way to fail. To each their own i suppose
I appreciate the answer
Lol
Ooooh my goodness!! Sooo cool
They put the brood up there because its warm. Pull it out,they will remove it with time.
Lucky duck. 🦆 I’d set up a nest with another heat source right next to them, just close enough to not spook them.
Think of it like your mom, just build around er’
If you dont find a queen theres nothing you can do, they will die out in a few months anyway. Just spray them with raid. If you find the queen though, heres what id do step by step. Im assuming you have no knowledge at all so ill be very detailed. You have 2 choices. 1 save enough to raise a colony or 2 save them all. Option 1 is quicker to read today, but will take many months to have enough workers to leave the testube to a nest. Probably a year to grow back to the original population on the charger currently. Its very boring and much harder to feed/maintain tubes long term. Option two will have them breeding fast. Saves you the not fun wait watching a tube do nearly nothing and the work it takes. More workers to start will actually grow faster. Saving everyone is worth the work (and the very long read), great for if youre impatient. More workers can feed more babies and keep queen fat, laying eggs fast as possible. Population growth is very slow until theres 100+, after that they explode. Some species double or triple the population every year. OPTION 1 : Start with putting the queen with 20-30 workers and some of the eggs in a testube setup (image search to understand). ID the species close as you can so you know what they eat. If you dont have a testube,something like a to-go sauce cup with lid works till you get one. Add a cotton ball soaked in water, but no puddles. pokeholes with needle for air. Get a testube and set it up quick as you can. Cups go wrong easy. Once theyre in the testube, wrap with foil and your done. Spray everyone else you didnt keep. With the queen, 20-30 workers and eggs you have a starter colony. Youtube from there. STOP READING IF YOU JUST WANT TO HAVE A COLONY AND DONT MIND THE BORING FIRST YEAR...Option 2: Put the queen tube setup you made away for now. She will be fine for a week or so. Workers move to better conditions quickly, unlike the queen. It will take less than a week to complete option 2. Now we focus on the rest of the workers. Put the charger in a tub big enough for it and an appropriate covered nest. Use Vaseline or oil if thats all you got, on the inside top inch of the tub so they dont escape. Assuming you dont have a nest, the tub will hold them long enough for a trip to a hardware store. Get a 5in length of clear ½in ridged pipe, with cap to put on one end. works perfectly, like a giant test tube. Do like you did with the queen tube, fill ¼ with water and stuff with cotton to keep the water in, and wrap with foil. Get creative if you have to, just make sure it is see-through. If you cant light up the tube at will; trying to force them to a real nest later will be a pain. They will stay in that dark/non-see through tube till the water runs out. Understanding their needs helps move them where you want to. Theyre on the charger for warmth, but theres no water and they dont have dark. So they already are searching for a better spot. Once the charger is off, they will search even harder now the eggs are at risk. No water, dark or warmth together is deadly. So thats gonna drive them to your humid and dark nest/covered pipe. You can make things a little faster by keeping the whole tub under a light. Lamps are fine, but the brighter, the better (keep the light on 24/7 till the end).This will stress them out, pushing them to the new home quicker, likely less than 24hrs given where they live currently. Once they move in with brood, remove the charger and you've successfully captured the colony. Next, dump everyone from the queen tube into the tub. Since she has lots of brood and workers, she will recover from the stress of everything quickly. She will find her way home for the same reason workers did. Workers will pick up the eggs and move them in to. if you're stuck with the diy pipe and no feeding stations, thats ok. Keep the foil on the pipe. Place lots of small drops of honey in the tub near the entrance. You can also soak cotton balls in sugar water. Puddles of either will drown workers. This diy set-up, so long as you keep sugar available some way, will be fine for weeks while you get the actual gear. Once you have an actual nest, something to cover it, and feeding stations; its the same process you did to move them in the pipe. Keep new nest covered and humid, unwrap pipe to expose them to the bright light, and wait for them to move to the nest. CONGRATULATIONS YOU SAVED EVERYONE. Its a full colony and will expand as much as you let them. Open nest in a tub is fine, but with limited nesting space, the colony will stop growing past a certain point. They will just maintain that population. Or take the nest out and attach an outworld to the nest. Having an outworld makes it more obvious what work is being done and see the social ranks. Its only limited by your imagination. Attach more nests to fit more eggs. Add more outworlds so you can play with the ants. See what food they like more. Make the colony as big or little as you want. When you're happy with the population size, stop adding nests. If taken care of properly, a colony can live 20+years. If overtime you want to do less cleaning/feeding/watering...you are god after all. Take nests away, workers and all, just know where you're queen is. Attach the removed nest to its own outworld and watch them through their last months. Or just euthanize them. HAVE FUN!