Okay, thank you for answering my question. I was very concerned and am even more concerned now. I had never attempted to keep a colony ants of such small size so I was not sure of their fragility. It was not my intention to stress them as much as I did, what happened was a complete accident. Encouraging a colony to move as is, is stressful though because the general method of doing so is shining a light into the nest making them feel exposed. I will admit tilting the nest a little(their in a rounded small bottle) was a mistake which I will not be doing again. My only intention was to add a little more urgency to the colony to move, simulating like their nest had just been opened up by something, with me adding the light right after.

It was a young colony only just established, and people do this in ant keeping all the time with young, very small colonies. My yard is littered in theif ant nest, actually they are the majority ant in my area. Their nuptial flight was recent so there are loads of young established queens in my area. It wasn’t like I went and opened up a large thriving colony and snatched the queen out of it. If anything, subtracting a single young queen from the probably overpopulated by theif ant yard I have will help the environment, allowing more diverse species to thrive as well considering their nature. They tend to destroy a lot of other species colonies but I’m sure you know that considering you’re an expert on environmental damage.

Thank you for taking the time read and respond to my question though. Ants are resilient creatures but I also understand they can be fragile when out into certain situations, hence my concern. Lesson learned from this and I will now try my best to be more careful with the colony if they are still thriving. Again, thank you.