Esme is in the family way too :-)

Last night Esme was very actively trying to hide her meal worm segment away and seemed very agitated. It was obvious why this morning. Two lovely eggs and a hidden meal worm = a happy, calmer Esme!

Charlene is considering a move.

Last night, Charlene decided to have a wander up the tube connecting her delightful specimen container to her outworld. She changed her mind before she got there though! I don't think she wants to move out yet.

Betsy's workers eat mealworms. Hoorah!

Put a small piece of mealworm into the container attached to the ant farm yesterday for Betsy and her family. I hadn't seen any of them since they disappeared yesterday when they moved in. That is until I spotted a worker sneaking a snack this afternoon. It went back into the farm and told the others apparently because then there were lots of mealworm visits over the next half an hour or so.

Things are changing...

I tried to get Charlene (aka The ant formerly known as C - still don't know what species she might be?) to move home yesterday, but she appears to be more than comfortable in her specimen jar.

Some photos of Charlene and her eggs and the outworld she could call home if she wanted...

Darlene is going to be a Mummy!

Darlene (aka The sugar ant formerly known as D) has 3 lovely looking eggs this afternoon! They weren't there this morning, so it looks like she got busy while we were out :-) They eggs are enormous compared to the other queens' eggs. Of course it's not really surprising considering how big she is!

I gave her some mealworm yesterday, but she seems to have been rather offended by it and hidden it behind her cotton wool ball!

Some pictures for you - ain't she pretty?

Where did Aggie go?

29/12/2011
I had a look with a torch to see if I could see inside Aggie's (aka The ant formerly known as A) red test tube and found that she and her family had moved out! As I couldn't see them anywhere I had a small poke around and found them hiding out under the damp cotton ball in the outworld I'd made for them. The photos aren't much good, but it will give you an idea of where they are now. It looks like there are at least 5 or 6 workers with her now too :-)
I put a little bit of chopped up mealworm in there for them to eat. They didn't seem interested though, but I might have just missed seeing them eat..

The outworld.

The hidey hole.

My queen ants have been named.

So much more personal now!
A shall now be known as: Aggie
B shall now be known as: Betsy
C shall now be known as: Charlene
D shall now be known as: Darlene
E shall now be known as: Esme (when I get to R (!) she will just have to be Renesme...)