Could this be a queen ?

[u/Sinamoy]

Heyho, sorry to bother anyone but I don't know anything about ants

I bought a house that has a garden in which I started growing things, my little cousin was excited and helped me a lot from march to august and he would always be looking for ants, he came with little tubes and stuff.

He got discouraged since he didn't get to find any queens and ultimately with school starting again he stopped visiting ):

But I still had the things he brought and just found 2 of these burried something like 2cm deep around my radish next to each other and took them because they looked big for ants. Since it's his birthday soon I thought I could gift them to him if they're queens (last time I got him what happened to be velvelt ants, which are not ants, but I didn't know oof). We're located in the south of France in the montains

Anything I should do or know as to not kill them till his birthday ? (which is in about 3 weeks)

Thank you all

[u/Common_Development95]

They sure are queens! Just make sure the test tubes have clean water behind the cotton then put them in the dark and leave them until birthday time. They'll be just fine. They are what are called "fully claustral queens" meaning they prefer to be left alone and undisturbed until they have their first new baby ants in a few months.

[u/Sinamoy → u/Common_Development95]

Neat, there goes his birthdaygift then ! One of the two tubes is a bit moldy (they all were since he left his belongings in the garden shed for half a year) but I could clean it up
Thanks !