Ants joining other nests???????

Question

if i collected 100 ants from my garden and took them 20 miles away would they try and find there way home or would they stick together and make a new nest or would they just go join another nest????????????

Answer 1

Well, what you need to do is move an ant nest - not just a group of ants.  WIthout the queen and the larvae and the food storage, the ants will just die off in a few days to a few weeks.  If they are from the same nest, they will hang around and then perhaps wander off to forage, but without a queen, they will have no nest, so they will just wander.  Also outside their nest they do not have a big group of foragers, so in the new area they will not know where the food is and the water - you will need to provide that - at least provide some sugar water or some slices of apple.  I think ants can eat what they find, though, so they will last a while - bees bring back pollen and other bees make the pollen into honey so the collecting bees starve without the hive workers.  But ants only live so long and cannot reproduce without a queen.  The ants where you move them to will also hunt them and attack them, fearing an invasion.