aommaster Posted April 11, 2004 Share Posted April 11, 2004 I am thinking of making an ant farm. What precautions do I need to take to make sure that this project works well? Also, how do i obtain the queen ant when trying the get a good sample of the colony? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolfson Posted April 11, 2004 Share Posted April 11, 2004 Look here Md: http://www.montessorimom.com/antcity.html 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lance Posted April 11, 2004 Share Posted April 11, 2004 You can just order the queen and ants. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aommaster Posted April 11, 2004 Author Share Posted April 11, 2004 You can just order the queen and ants. what does that mean? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mooeypoo Posted April 11, 2004 Share Posted April 11, 2004 oh my god, like by mail!?? WOW. I had no idea they do that... where are the times kids went outside with a cup and collected the ants... eh... I wonder if they ship those overseas... ~moo p.s: I seriously didn't know you ship those things. No pun intended, and it wasn't meant to make fun of anyone. This is a true surprised post. Perhaps next time I'll add more and faces. ~moo -1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aommaster Posted April 11, 2004 Author Share Posted April 11, 2004 oh my god' date=' like by mail!?? WOW. I had no idea they do that... where are the times kids went outside with a cup and collected the ants... eh... I wonder if they ship those overseas... ~moo[/quote'] ummm... i was planning to do just that. Get the ants 'manually' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mooeypoo Posted April 11, 2004 Share Posted April 11, 2004 Yeah I always thought that is the best way to do that ... ehh... well unless you want princess ant (royalty or something ) and then you probly should order them. It's fun collecting them though. Good luck by the way, let us know how things go with your tiny city ~moo 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aommaster Posted April 11, 2004 Author Share Posted April 11, 2004 thanx. Any tips on how to actually collect them, before i make a mess of things? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted April 11, 2004 Share Posted April 11, 2004 I'd assume you just go and dig up your garden until you find a few Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aommaster Posted April 11, 2004 Author Share Posted April 11, 2004 well, no, I was talking about the quenn ant and how to actually recognise her. I have read a little bit about it. It says that she is bigger and paler than the other ants. Anything else I could use to recognise her? Wings? SHARP TEETH? GIGANTIC CLAWS? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lance Posted April 11, 2004 Share Posted April 11, 2004 Ya if you don’t get the queen you may have some problems. I don’t think the ants last long without the queen. Where is the motivation to tunnel? Anyway that’s why I suggested ordering them. I remember a long time ago I had an ant farm and that’s the way I did it. It was always fun to find foreign ants and watch them wage war though. I think the queen loses its wings when it starts breeding. It looks like most plastic ant farms you buy come with mail-order ants. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mooeypoo Posted April 11, 2004 Share Posted April 11, 2004 I'm just amused with the things you can order by mail these days... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
admiral_ju00 Posted April 12, 2004 Share Posted April 12, 2004 well, no, I was talking about the quenn ant and how to actually recognise her. I have read a little bit about it. It says that she is bigger and paler than the other ants. Anything else I could use to recognise her? Wings? SHARP TEETH? GIGANTIC CLAWS? when you find the queen, you should have no doubt about it. even out of the variety of the ents(workers, warriors, etc), she still is quite recognizable due to her size as compared to the rest of the specimens. assume that she's extremely obese, say by a ton or so as compared to all the rest of the ents at that colony. although the question is how to lure her may indeed be somewhat of a problem. i'd imagine that she might be the very last one to come out, or not at all(unless you're planning to simply dig in to their colony. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aommaster Posted April 12, 2004 Author Share Posted April 12, 2004 oh so she is EASILY recognisable? I thought there is very small differences. Thanx alot guys. I'll take some pics of the tunnels when they are ready Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted April 12, 2004 Share Posted April 12, 2004 When you think about how many ants they have to produce... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aommaster Posted April 12, 2004 Author Share Posted April 12, 2004 hmmm.... yeah. i'll have a look and tell u guys if i have a problem Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aommaster Posted April 12, 2004 Author Share Posted April 12, 2004 OK guys! Its done. I have a slight doubt about the queen though I was looking fo the queen, and I found an ant that was about twice as big as the others, in the area that I was digging in. I also found another one of the same size in that same area. On top of that, there were no larvae when i found that ant! Is that the queen? If it isn't, how far down do i have to dig before i actually find the larvae? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aommaster Posted April 13, 2004 Author Share Posted April 13, 2004 Bad news guys Experiment did not work. The ants have NOT dug the tunnels. I don't think i have found the queen either. I am thinking of letting them go. Any ideas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sayonara Posted April 13, 2004 Share Posted April 13, 2004 Are you sure they are ants, and not raisins? It's easy to confuse them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aommaster Posted April 13, 2004 Author Share Posted April 13, 2004 LOL! No, really, I am serious about this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mooeypoo Posted April 13, 2004 Share Posted April 13, 2004 Egh. Maybe you should order them by mail anyways.... That's frustrating.. how can someone get ants WITHOUT ordering by mail? there's GOTTA be a solution to this... Err.... take a pack of chocolate and try to lure them? I'm clueless. ~moo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aommaster Posted April 13, 2004 Author Share Posted April 13, 2004 well, this will be possible, but the problem with this is to get the queen, and that is not easy. I'm just wondering whether the ants will build a tunnel without a queen and will be able to survive. Also, will a new queen apper after that? Some questions to ant-ologists 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BioMan Posted April 13, 2004 Share Posted April 13, 2004 Do you know what species you're dealing with? I've done a similar thing with the common British ant, and the Queen was very easy to find. I know a good species to work with is Leptothorax, cos it's small and lives in flat nests - a good study insect. Who gets to mate with the Queen depends on the species - but essentially what you need is her, and some worker to provide the sperm, or get larvae if you can... edit to add: to find the Queen - simply follow the workers, when you see them, they are foraging for food to take back to the nest. She stays put in the centre for most of the time, and larvae will be found in her vicinity. Usually the queen is predetermined from birth, so no, you can't start a colony with just a worker ant. They are all haploid (half the genes) and sterile. It's better to think of the colony as the organism and the ants as specialised cells. eg The workers are the differentiated cells, like skin, organs etc The Queen is analogous to the somatic cells and so reproduction occurs via her and select males only. All depends on species too. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aommaster Posted April 14, 2004 Author Share Posted April 14, 2004 Do you know what species you're dealing with? I've done a similar thing with the common British ant' date=' and the Queen was very easy to find.[/quote'] that was what i was afraid of If I gave you a description of it, would you know what it would be? here: The length is about 3-5 millimeteres They are maroon in colour, except for their thorax, which is black i hope that it enough Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BioMan Posted April 14, 2004 Share Posted April 14, 2004 I'm afraid I'm not that much of authority on ants - there are about 9000 spp! However, I assume you are American, so the key at http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/TOOLS/ANTKEY/index.htmlan might be useful. Simply plug in the traits of your ant and see what you come up with. I also found this, which may be a little discouraging: The Department of Agriculture prohibits interstate shipment of queen ants. They don't want reproducing ants going into other states where they may start colonies that could damage agriculture or the ecosystem. Another reason we don't send queens is because they are very difficult to find. Harvester ants tunnel up to 15 feet straight down when building their colony and may have many thousands of ants per colony. Finding the queen is like finding a needle in a hay stack. However, I found the Queen ant quite easily since I had a patio. The ants had tunnelled a 2 dimensional nest beneath the paving stones, and were therefore very easy to find. If you have a colony in your garden, I would suggest digging the whole thing up and sifting through it. - Anyway, goodluck with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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