Ant Farm!

gary the great

My brother got an ant farm for xmas. The ants have started appearing around the place now and he collected up about 15 yesterday, but by today there all dead!

Its the ant farm form iwoot, the one with the nasa gel.

Anyone any suggestions?

SuperSean11

no idea just google it

tk123

come round to my house in a few months and you can take as many ants as you want!

sillymoo

You did not find an empty bottle of ant spray around and a suspisious pair of black gloves........?????

weatherman

What species of ants did your bro. collect (from under a rock I suppose)? Depending on the ant species, the humidity level inside the ant farm can play an important role. For instance Myrmica Rubra (commonly know as red ants) required a high humidity level or they will die very quickly.

Lasius Niger (black garden ants), on the other hand, are easier to keep in an ant farm (stronger) and more common too.

Note that to keep ants (alive) in your ant farm for a long period (e.g more than a few weeks) you require to have a queen. Ants do not have a 'purpose' without their queen and will just let themselves die (due to lack of feromone messages).

Ant queen can be quite hard to find/get along with the rest of the colony, they live deep in the ant nest and trying to find one can be difficult/impossible without killing a lot of them (which you should avoid).

There are shops such as antstore.de (has an english version) which specialises in ants/queen sale. It is usally a tenner for a small Lasius Nigel colony (note that this queen can live up to 39 years in captivity, ants usually live only 2/3 years (with the queen)!!)

Hope this helps,

Just in case you were wandering, I have a few colonies myself at home (4 different species).

A word of caution, some ants are protected species (usually wood ants), and some of them stings such as Myrmica Rubra (like a nettle, trust me I know...).

Weatherman

RaiseTheBlinds

i see kirk from Corrie got an ant-farm too,.... how bizarre.

never even knew they sold ant farms !!

some of those ants in australia are huge,..... bigger than a matchbox.
used to camp out in the outback a lot, one morning i woke up and as the sun illuminated the tent , i witnessed an interesting battle between one of these large ants and a wasp,... the wasp was snapped in half very quickly,.... i just thanked god that i had an under-layer between me and the ant.

Clarkey1904

Im in a funny position, i want to start my own ant farm, and round up about 11 Lasius Niger ants outside, but the problem i have is.... no normal ants to do their dirty work lol

P.S 11 queens.

star-pants

Guys please only helpful posts ok?

Flossy Flossy

Is it a stupid question to ask if you get the ants when buying a starter kit from one of these sites ?

1Ant100

Are you sure the species can survive in gel?

Cherry Blossom

1Ant100 wrote: »

Are you sure the species can survive in gel?

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