Pavement ant
Tetramorium caespitum
Temperature
24–28 °C
Humidity
40–60 %
Hibernation
November – February
Where it comes from
- Range
- Europe, in paving, gravel and any warm dry gap
- Size
- Workers 2–4 mm, queen 6–8 mm
- Queens
- One queen
Keeping them
- Diet
- Insects, seeds and sugar water
- Founding
- Fully claustral — the queen needs no food until her first workers
- Brood development
- Egg to worker in roughly 6–8 weeks at 26 °C
- Nest
- Mostly dry, warm, and sealed better than you think you need
- Wintering
- 5–10 °C
Tiny, tough and fast-growing. Seal the outworld properly: workers fit through gaps you would not think of as gaps.
Check it yourself
General guidance from the usual beginner references — treat it as a starting point, not as a rule your colony has agreed to.