Now most people might find this strange and think of the Milton ant farms that they played with as a kid. Contrary to many preconceptions, ant-keeping is no longer just for little kids. They can make fascinating and fun pets to those who can appreciate them.
I have been keeping them for awhile now, so I thought I would give some tips to anyone who is interested but isn't sure what to do, and to possibly introduce some to this rewarding hobby.
Getting The Queen:
The first and most frustrating step in keeping ants is getting a queen. Mail order ants from Milton are just workers and will die out, and the US department of agriculture does not allow the selling of queens, so you'll have to get one yourself.
The most rewarding way to do this is to wait for the yearly nuptial flights. This is when the young queens and male ants come out of their nests and go on their mating flight. You probably remember seeing odd winged ants in the spring time. You don't want an ant that still has its wings as this is an ant that has probably not been fertilized yet.
After the mating flight, the young queen will remove her wings almost instantly and then look for a place to start a nest; this is the time you want to catch her. It's really easier than it sounds, I found twelve queens in one day when I wasn't even looking. You'll know the queen when you see her; she is much larger than the workers of her species, her abdomen (her butt end) will also be much larger than normal. Once you have her, put her in a small container with moist soil and place that somewhere that is not in direct sunlight.
The queen will soon settle down and dig a small chamber in the soil where she will lay her first batch of eggs. you wont see any activity for a couple of months as the eggs hatch and go through their lifecycle: Egg to larva to pupa to full grown ant. Once the first generation is all grown up, they will emerge, looking much smaller than their species normally does since they haven't had much to eat during their development.
It's important that you provide them with food right away as their queen will have lost nearly half of her body weight by that time.
Feeding:
One of the great things about ants is that they are very cheap to care for. Ants are tiny little things, so they don't need much food, just a dab of honey on a water soaked piece of paper towel and the occasional dead insect will usually suffice. Keep in mind that different species like different things. Some ants will like small seeds while others will ignore them.
Ant care involves a lot of trial and error and patience, but all ants love sugary foods, but they NEED meat and protein to feed to the young, so make sure you give them a dead fly or caterpillar at least once a week. I usually feed them on a flat surface until they stop eating, this way it is easy to apply the food and remove what they don't eat so it won't grow mold.
Also keep in mind that ants are small, but their greatest strength is that they work together. You can give them food larger than themselves, but don't give them more than they can handle; the first generation is especially small, so try to give them mosquitoes and such.
Enclosures:
You are probably familiar with the Milton ant farms. They provide you with a view of the ant's tunnels, but it cramps them and limits their foraging area. If you get a ten gallon terrarium set up with soil you can watch the ants spread out to forage like they would outside.
There are many setups you can make, using the traditional style ant farm for their nest and connect it to a tank as a foraging area so you can get the best of both worlds, but do not make your enclosure out of wood, many species of ants can tunnel through this.
Also, try to keep in mind that different ants like to live in different terrain. Carpenter ants like to nest in wood wile the little ants that make the volcano mounds in your driveway like grainy dirt. The best way to determine what your ants will like is to observe the species around your house, find their nest, and see what kind of soil it is. Whatever you do, when you find a nest DO NOT try to dig it up to get a queen! Ants can dig several feet into the ground and spread out in all directions.
