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Queen Ant for an Ant Farm
KiTA
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Odd question. I have the strange urge to make an ant farm this year, but I would like to get a queen ant this time instead of having to rely on buying ants every few years.
Does anyone know where I could find a queen ant? I know one can't buy them online, but I'm having a devil of a time trying to find them in my area (Idaho).
Does anyone know where I could find a queen ant? I know one can't buy them online, but I'm having a devil of a time trying to find them in my area (Idaho).
KiTA on
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actually you can buy them online, but not in the US, since your laws are a lot more restrictive than over here in Europe.
In Berlin is a shop called Antstore, where you can buy native and exotic queens and get them delivered, I have also made contact with collectors from other countries over the net and bought ants from them, but this is probably not an option for you.
The restrictions for US mentioned even prohibit ant queens being transported over state lines as far as I know, which is a good thing for the native fauna, since parasites and infections might otherwise spread to different colonies at an alarming rate.
Anyway, here is what you should/could do:
Ant colonies usually swarm once per year, you have to get a general idea which species of ants ive in your area and check on the web at what time of year this particular species will swarm.
Be on the lookout, they mostly swarm late in the afternoon/early in the evening.
Please stay way from possible pest ants. I know of some people who are keeping fire ants or other nasty species like the pharao ant, but seriously, why even bother when it could go totally wrong if they escape.
After the swarm flight you will see big winged ants(the queens) that problably coupled with drones(the males).
They will be crawling across open ground or lawns, looking for a save place.
You can then proceed to collect a queen and keep it.
If they were successfully impregnated(forgive my lack of better scientific terms in English), the queens should drop their wings shortly after they have swarmed since they have no need for it anymore.
Keep the queens in a test tube, the back of the test tube(about a third of the tube maybe) should be filled with water, stuff a bit of cotton wool into the tube, to keep the water in its small tank, but also to allow the queen access to the wet cotton.
Seal the tube(cotton, ants don't need much oxygen, but you want some air to get in there) and leave the queen alone for a couple of weeks. They really don't respond too well to stress when caring for the first generation of future workers.
If you want to watch get a sheet of red transparent foil and wrap it around the tube, ants can't see red light.
A lot of species rear their first generation of workers from reserves stored in their body, so you will not need to feed them, actually feeding could mean unneccessary stress for them.
Once the first couple of workers hatched you can put the tube into the farm.
Feed your ants with honey(mixed with water and put on cotton balls or pads for smaller ants, so they do not drown in it) and insects, preferably dead ones as long as the colony is still young.
When the colony grows(one of my Lasius niger colonies got from 8 ants to about 1000 in about a year), you will notice that a farm might not be enough.
Ideally you should add some sort of foraging space like an aquarium with some nice deco to the farm, you can use rubber tubes, glass tunnels, or whatever you prefer for this.
I can add more to this short introduction on ant keeping later if you want to know more, there is also an english speaking forum for ant enthusiasts, maybe there are people on there from your area that have queens left, but I have not been on this forum for a long time and I am too lazy to look right now, will do so later.
Please don't try to get a queen from an existing colonies, in most cases this is futile as queens might be several yards below ground an even if you are successfull in case of monogyneous colonies the whole colony will slowly die once the queen is removed.
And 2nd: In my defense, I used to have normal and cuddly pets like dogs and cats, I stumbled upon this wretched ant collecting and keeping lifestyle by accident(and its not so bad, I just keep one colony in a really nice setup right now
Is your setup set-up in such a way that you can watch them in the tunnels?
Edit: Seriously, though. Why cant you buy queens in the US? Some kind of wildlife preservation law or something like that?
Ever heard of Killer Bees?
It's like that. They don't want people bringing ants down from like, Washington to Florida, where they'll pull a Kudzu and take over everything. I haven't heard of Ant diseases, but presumably they don't want to risk that sorta thing either -- if ants actually have diseases, that is.
And while a farm is a good way to see the ant tunnels, a lot of people here in Germany(and also France and other European countries, though the practice seems kinda unknown to American ant keepers) use blocks of aerated concrete(which is pretty soft and water permeable) and just use a power drill or even better a Dremel to make their own tunnels.
Just glue a bit of plexiglass on the block and you just made a perfectly observable ant nest.
Most ant colonies will accept this as a new home(especially if no humid earth for burrowing is available).
PS: If any Australians on this forum here can get me a bull ant queen please PM me
Wonder how hard it would be to get a permit so I can order ants from a local university or something...
The colony is currently in 2 test tubes wrapped with red foil, you can see it to the left.
I wanna install a nest made from aerated concrete sooner or later.
I know the pic is shitty, I am too dumb to properly take pictures witth the light inside the formicarium running and it gets even worse when I turn the cameras flash off.
This antkeeping thing looks cool...
Wonder if you could do the two pane of glass thing in the far back of the terrarium, covering one side with red film...
When you decide how to arrange your ant keeping setup basically the posibilities are limitless, you could put a farm into the formicarium close to the front window, or connect both with a tube, put more sand in and keep it wet so they can just dig naturally and don't have any kind of farm at all(but you won't see the queen and the brood then), use plaster nests(wouldn't recommend it), use wooden nests(for some species) etc.etc.
Btw, here's a link to that forum I mentioned:
http://antfarm.yuku.com/forums/2/t/Keeping-Ants.html
I have not been there in a while, when I read it on a halfway regular basis I noticed some very competent users and lots of people that were pretty gung ho about the whole thing, but see for yourself.
And here's another basic tip: If you want to keep ants from escaping, one of the cheapest and easiest ways is to use talcum powder, should be dirt cheap in any apothecary or drugstore, you don't need more than 50 grams.
Mix it with a little water and stirr, till it has a nice mushy consistency, don't use too much water and then use a brush to apply it to the upper 1 or 2 inch of the panes.
Use google image search for "ameisen talkum" and you will get the idea.
Once it is dry ants will slip off from the talcum, you have to redo this about once a year.
http://www.antstore.net/shop/index.php/language/en/XTCsid/764a786e6eab2bc36adf7e7aaf0e7008
I really want a pet ant colony now.
And a biochem lab so I could manufacture my own pheromones and make them clean up where I wanted them to.
I'm glad you added this because as I was reading your post I was totally doing a o_O.
But you seem to have great knowledge about this and it is cool (if a little off-beat) so kudos on your hobby.
We DID happen to randomly see a hole in the middle of the driveway, it was odd, very small hole with a small pile of dirt around it.
I have to wonder given the time of year if that's a fresh hive with a new queen or if it's just some older hive digging up a new hole... Hm... It was about the size of a silver dollar (about 1-2" wide pile of dirt, only a few MM tall)
Think I should try digging it up and maybe capturing a queen, or instead just waiting and hoping to find a nativity flight and a newly fertile queen? Maybe I should stay outside and watch the hole and see if any workers come in or out?
http://kita.ath.cx/plants/06.01.08/Ants.JPG
http://kita.ath.cx/plants/06.01.08/Ants2.JPG
I count 6 workers total... Sound like a good time to kidnap the queen?
Like I mentioned earlier, the queen could be several feet or even deeper in the ground AND if you go on digging, just think how your chances will be to get the queen alive and unharmed, if you don't even know where she is.
Nativity flights have just started for some early species, mostly they will be in mid and late summer
check this out:
http://www.ameisenhaltung.de/schwarmflug/
Your best bet if you don't want to wait is to check the ant farm forum and ask for people in your area. They might have queens left or even small colonies and if not they might still be able to give you some hints on what species live in your area and when their nativity flight starts.
When you see them on their own, crawling around and looking for places to hide, that's when they are done with the flight.
A lot of times they will already have shed their wings by then.
If they swarm out for the flight, the place will be crawling with queens, I never noticed it that much in the past, but once you look for them you will see them everywhere.
I live in the city and managed to catch 6 queens last year without any trouble at all, I could have gone for lots more.
If you catch one and it does not shed its wings then it is not fertile and won't produce workers.
I'm not quite sure where to look. Should I keep an eye out for swarms of winged ones, then just... wait till that evening and look for bugs landing?
A random question - do you ant collectors ever worry about your colony.. escaping? The glass breaking or something? I've kind of wanted to have an ant colony but couldn't stand thinking my house is infested with ants because of my own doing.
Isn't that sort of a concern if they are right next to your house ?
Librarians harbor a terrible secret. Find it.
Your pet ants could fight off the termites.
Nah, they're just male swarmers, they can't do shit. The queen comes separatly.
It's good for the plants, they break down the mulch faster.
Yeah, there's some new kind of ant that swarms electronics being found downi n the south. Elecetricians are coming to fix broken mains to find the surge protectors are caked with 3 or 4 inches of dead ant -- and given enough dead ants, they eventually cause shorts.
I can't imagine that would be good for house-adjacent mulch beds.
I have a pot with a Raspberry plant in the back yard. Little black ants, Harvesters I imagine?
It has a goodly amount of ants in the pot and climbing around the workbench the pot is on. They are hanging out mostly on the newly opened flowers, I'm guessing they're eating the nectar? I donno if that's good for the berries or not.
God, they had better not be farming aphids.
I am actually curious if a queen happened to land IN my pot and made a nest. After watering the pot (whoops) I noticed a lot of the workers were very very interested in finding a way back into the soil... Maybe I should go watch them and see if they evac a nest or something.
There's a similar swarm near my blueberries.
Wow. That's actually pretty cool. In a weird sort of way.
Yeah, I'd agree with most of the advice here. Tubes are a decent place to look sometimes (I once picked up a small piece of tube as a kid and my arm was instantly covered in ants. Not a good experience). Don't bother with anthills, but if you can find a shallow ant colony under a big rock, you might have a chance (My backyard used to have two or three slates of rock, about as big as a magazine, maybe an inch thick in the backyard, you could lift them up to see the colony inside. I know there were plenty of eggs there, don't know about the queen, I didn't really ever look.
I had an ant farm over the summer when I was younger. One of those kits that comes with a form that you fill out and mail and get ants in return. It's was just so neat seeing them carve out a home in a pile of dirt.