here you can see what my ants did while i was working. the cap was filled with water. around half of it. they put a lot of sand into it so all the water drained into the ground because of capillary action. so the ground is now moist. maybe you can see that the sand is darker. you can see on the left side how they
chose exactly one area to establish the connection to the ground. i often hear from others that they put sand into it in order to prevent drowning. but i personally think that there are other reasons i think that they realize that there is water inside the cap and that they moisturize their own nest or create new potential nesting places. the ants already started digging under the cap
a few moments ago more ants were digging so here you can see it again from a different perspective. here you can clearly see how they layed down the grains of sand till the ground. here you can also see how dark the sand is that indicates moisture in the ground. the question is: is it simply coincidence? as already said,
i personally don't think that it is coincidence but as far as i know there hasn't been any reasearch yet. so that's my personal interpretation of the observation thank you for watching, have a nice day! ciao.