Tapinoma sessile ant keeping

Tapinoma sessile ants are very common throughout North America, and from the bits of information I have discovered about them, which isn't very much, they often have multiple queens. I have two small colonies of these guys from two summers ago, plus a lot of queens with brood from this last summer, yet to hatch. The queens are about the same size as the Formica limata queens I have previously found, but the workers are tiny, and all the same size. They are actually super cute, but I need a magnifier to see pretty much anything they are doing.  The queen is so much bigger than the workers, they really don't look like they could possibly be related.

Tapinoma sessile queen, workers and brood

One of the issues I have gathered from little bits of info on the ant keeper's forums is that of feeding them protein. While they seem to take liquids, especially sugary liquids quite readily, they apparently aren't keen on much else.  I have had success with with freezing mealworms and then cutting off their heads and dropping them in. They seem to enjoy the fatty material oozing out of the mealworm. So far these guys have been easy to keep. Both of my two year old colonies are still in test tube setups, the larger one has about 20 workers and 30 brood, and the other is much smaller with only 4 worker, and maybe 10 brood. Most of these queens seem to lay a lot of eggs in their first batch.

Two tiny workers and a mealworm lunch

It is my understanding that the queens don't live that long, but queens going off on a nuptial flight may return to their home colony after mating, and so the colony can continue on in this fashion endlessly, though that doesn't work quite so well for keeping these guys in captivity. I may try to join up some of last summers queens and brood with my two colonies, in the hopes of keeping them going longer. These guys are really active, especially later in the day and into the evening, but often during the day all the workers stand very still, almost in a formation, for hours on end, seemingly in a trance.

These colonies are also said to move easily to new nests, and I have found it is easier to move these guys out of a dry or moldy test tube than most of the other colonies I have had.

All in all I find these guys a pleasure to keep and observe.