AntHouseNatural sand ant farm - Basic set (sandwich + food box)

It arrived all well boxed from the seller. Although coming form Spain the ants would have had a good shake about while being transported.Went for this as my son wanted an ant farm. It had the best reviews, which made me pick it, instead of buying the cheapest kit. For a start, as a started kit, I would expect some instructions. There are none !!!The kit has no breathing holes as others have that I saw on youtube videos. We had to open it once a day for several minutes for fresh air to get in.The first day the ants, tidied up their tube, and brought out any dirt or dead ants (yes there were some worker ants dead already). They still had seeds and access to the water int he tube as well as the nectar we made for them. Also we put some fresh fruit to give them an incentive to come out of their tube. The ants seem to enjoy that a lot, and we changed it every 2 days to avoid mould building up.Within 2 days or arrival and after the ants seem to still be comfortable within their tube, 2 of the soldier ants came out and died on the thicker sand.Within a week the queen died and the other ants brought her out. Prior to that she made a walk outside the tube to explore or say her final goodbye. We are left with some workers and some guards. Obviously this colony is now dead. But we are trying to figure out what went wrong, or if they were doomed from arrival.The ants never showed any interest in digging in the sand to establish any sort of colony. Or cared much to explore the whole kit. They barely walked within the tube and then turned back.I am not convinced this is a good started kit. Should we have emptied the tube into the main sand / lair part? Should we have done something different with the queen? No instructions no info. Unfortunately I will have to source another started colony from elsewhere with native UK ants and maybe this is the issue. I would not recommend this kit.