Makes sense, thanks for the heads-up on the glass. I think I’ll try pouring small amounts of boiling water at a time in the center of the substrate. Maybe I can put a heat mat around the glass first to heat it up from the outside first.
The bolded statement is likely untrue. Most species of ant queens can not employ parthenogenesis to create worker ants under normal circumstances, though similar biology in which mating within the nest may occur is prevalent in species such as Stigmatomma pallipes, where males produced from one nest will mate and sexually fertilize with female alates of the same nest. However, depending on the maturity, species and conditions the ant colony is exposed to, reproduction rate within the bioactive enclosure could be so fast that it'd seem that these little creatures are parthenogenetic.
Want to bet? Among the 20 or 30 species in and around our home there is at least one variety that can teleport. At a rough guess a cross between Alien, a lantern fish, and a great white shark. Roughly 3 times the size of the average bacterium and top flight experts in the formulation and use of chemical warfare agents. My coffee cup is balanced precariously on the books to my left because if placed on the low table to my right it will fill up with those ants in roughly 3 minutes. Where they come from has to be a teleportation gate from a parallel universe since everything in this room has been scrupulously scrubbed, vacuumed and isolated around 50 times.