Queen ants have a significant role in an ant colony as these are responsible for its survival. You cannot get them easily because workers and soldiers are protecting them.
How to Get Queen Ant Out of its Nest? You can get a queen out of its nest by using a vacuum cleaner, increasing the temperature with hair dryers, using a plunger, shovel, tweezers, and flooding the nest with cold water.
Queens live deep inside the tunnel as these rarely come out of the nest. You have to wait for the warm weather to catch them when they come out of the nest for mating.
How do you get a queen ant out of her nest?
It is a little bit challenging to get a queen out of the nest as it remains deep in the tunnel and comes out of the nest occasionally.
Blowing of nests
You can use a vacuum cleaner to blow an ant nest to get the queen out of it. It is better to put a cardboard piece on the entry points when you are going to blow them out.
After that, place an excluder that allows workers to leave but captures large size insects. Turn on the vacuum cleaner, set it to the lowest suction, and bring it close to the entry point of the ant mound.
Moreover, it helps create a vacuum and force her to come out as it produces an uncomfortable environment for the insects living under plant twigs and wooden logs.
They begin to move to a safe place and leave their old habitat. The excluder will capture the queen ant and allows smaller ants to pass through it.
It helps isolate the mother ant quickly as you have to suffocate these insects, which can cause discomfort and force them to get escape from the uncomfortable place.
Furthermore, you can hold a vacuum cleaner on the opening of the nest and turn it on after removing an attachment; it will help in sucking her large body but slowly.
Sift soil by shovel
The ant mounds can be clearly seen on the ground surface, having a single entry point, but it is not possible to imagine the surface covered by these tiny insects under the ground.
You can use a shovel to sift the soil slowly when finding a queen in the colony. However, it is better not to interfere with the dangerous insects known for deadly stings.
However, you have to wear gloves and cover the exposed areas of your body when sifting the soil, as they can quickly reach your body and sting the skin.
Keep displacing soil until you find a large-winged female moving around the nest. Sometimes, you can find them moving close to the opening when the weather is suitable for their flight.
Use sweet food
You probably have some idea about the caste system in a colony based on workers, queens, males, and larvae, where every individual ant knows its function.
The workers go out of the nest to forage for food while the queen ant remains inside. You can place a piece of food that can preferably be a sweet juicy fruit that attracts workers toward it.
Moreover, the tiny foraging ants begin to move towards a food source, leaving their mother behind in the colony, which makes it easy to remove her from the mound.
It is easy to identify queen ants within a large colony as most of the workers will get attracted to a food source.
Make use of a plunger
The plunger has a suction cup at the end of the rod to help make ants leave their nest, including the larger queen. You have to put it on the entry points of mounds and push it down with good force.
Avoid quick pressing of the plunger, as slow pressing can help in better air displacement. In addition, these tiny insects move out of the mounds, and workers will carry their mother to leave.
It is difficult to cause discomfort for her as these live deep inside the tunnel and remain inside most of the time.
Accordingly, high displacement of air can make the place uncomfortable for them and force them to come out of the nest.
Flooding of the ant nest
Flooding of nests seems to be the safest method of interfering with an ant mound when you want to get a queen.
However, it is essential to add water in a small amount as excessive moisture can kill them instantly.
These insects can drown when you add a bucket of chilled water inside a small mound. It is better to add water slowly to create chaos within the mound.
Fill a spray bottle with frozen water and spray on the entry point so water droplets can reach inside. The ants feel a threat in their surroundings and leave the mound quickly.
You can see a few workers carrying her out to shift to a new place. It is the time when you have to pick the queen ant.
Increase temperature
Ants like to live in warm temperatures as it helps them multiply and allows the queen to reproduce. Therefore, she leaves her nest when the weather becomes favorable to engage in nuptial flight for mating.
They prefer to live in warm places, but hot temperature affects their activities as these insects cannot tolerate extreme temperatures.
Accordingly, you can use a hair dryer to increase the temperature that makes them uncomfortable. You have to be careful about the temperature range as it can also kill her.
When these insects feel discomfort, they leave the mound quickly and move to other areas. So this is the right time to pick her up quickly.
Why would you get a queen out of its nest?
A queen ant is considered a royal colony member and treated like a mother as it ensures the colony’s survival. It produces new larvae that can replace the old dying member of the colony.
It becomes essential to kill her when you want to get rid of these tiny insects; otherwise, it can give rise to a population at a different spot if you think nest disturbance can make her leave the house.
Some people make efforts to get her out of the mound without killing them when they are interested in keeping them inside an ant farm.
You can capture a newly mated queen as it can give rise to a new population within a short time by fertilizing the eggs. So, you can get her out of the nest to get rid of the population or raise it.
How to catch a queen ant without killing it?
There are different ways to capture a queen ant without killing as most people prefer to use their hands to get a grip over their tiny bodies, but it can kill them sometimes.
You have to prepare a container and test tube before starting the catching process. Fill 2/3 of the test tube with water and put cotton inside that touches the water surface and remains moist.
Keep the test tube in your hand, keep the open end close to the moving insect, and pray that she will come inside it.
In addition, you can also use a toothpick to make her move inside the tube.
Tweezers can also help pick the queen ant and leave it inside a closed container with a habitat similar to their underground mounds.
Additionally, you can put your hand in her way, which makes her climb on the hand and allow you to throw it inside a test tube.
Close the open end of the tube with a cotton plug and inject sweet juices into the cotton to give them a food source, which is essential for their survival.
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