ant colony in a traditional ant farm?

[mANTra]

hi there! my five year old got us started on ant keeping after watching some of Mikey's videos & finding a few queens (how are there so many queens just cruising around?!).. i didn't really believe they were queens until they started laying eggs, so one of them ended up in our Uncle Milton's giant ant farm, where she proceeded to lay a bunch of eggs. does anyone have any suggestions as to what we should do with her now? apparently there are ant farms with the ability to connect tubes so you can have multiple farms altogether, but ours didn't come with anything like that.

thanks for any suggestions you might have!!
-beth

p.s.- i just remembered that when i was a kid my best friend & i had imaginary ants as friends that would travel through outlets & holes in walls to talk with each other. guess this hobby was just meant to be!

[Batspiderfish]

Hello! The conventional Uncle Milton ant farms were designed to house, temporarily, Pogonomyrmex workers. I wouldn't recommend one of those for keeping a complete colony. There is a nice selection of artificial nests available to buy online. If you want to do it yourself, you can make your own formicarium out of plaster or even your own upright dirt nest. There are lots of instructional videos on YouTube.

[mANTra]

Hey Batspiderfish- thanks for the reply! i don't know how to reply so you'll actually see it, but that's kinda what i figured! any ideas how to get the queen with her eggs out of there, or how to connect it to some sort of outworld easily while there's already sand & a critter in there?

[larynx]

Hey Batspiderfish- thanks for the reply! i don't know how to reply so you'll actually see it, but that's kinda what i figured! any ideas how to get the queen with her eggs out of there, or how to connect it to some sort of outworld easily while there's already sand & a critter in there?

Hey, mANTra if you look at the top right of any post, there is set of buttons. If you hover over them they will tell you their functions. One is a quotation mark, and if pushed will quote whatever post you are on at the time of the push of the button. This will inform the poster you quoted, that they have been quoted or have a response for their post.

Getting the queen out of that stand up farm may prove to be difficult. At worst you may have to disassemble the farm carefully and retrieve the queen and brood. NOTE: I would do this as a last resort, if someone or you doesn't come up with a more viable solution.
By the way, welcome to the forums, and the wonderful world of ant keeping AKA: Myrmecology.
Feel free to pick as many brains as you need, and remember no questions are stupid ones.

[mANTra]

Hey Batspiderfish- thanks for the reply! i don't know how to reply so you'll actually see it, but that's kinda what i figured! any ideas how to get the queen with her eggs out of there, or how to connect it to some sort of outworld easily while there's already sand & a critter in there?

Hey, mANTra if you look at the top right of any post, there is set of buttons. If you hover over them they will tell you their functions. One is a quotation mark, and if pushed will quote whatever post you are on at the time of the push of the button. This will inform the poster you quoted, that they have been quoted or have a response for their post.

Getting the queen out of that stand up farm may prove to be difficult. At worst you may have to disassemble the farm carefully and retrieve the queen and brood. NOTE: I would do this as a last resort, if someone or you doesn't come up with a more viable solution.
By the way, welcome to the forums, and the wonderful world of ant keeping AKA: Myrmecology.
Feel free to pick as many brains as you need, and remember no questions are stupid ones.

Thanks, larynx!

[mANTra]

Hello! The conventional Uncle Milton ant farms were designed to house, temporarily, Pogonomyrmex workers. I wouldn't recommend one of those for keeping a complete colony. There is a nice selection of artificial nests available to buy online. If you want to do it yourself, you can make your own formicarium out of plaster or even your own upright dirt nest. There are lots of instructional videos on YouTube.

Hey Batspiderfish- thanks for the reply! that's kinda what i figured! any ideas how to get the queen with her eggs out of there, or how to connect it to some sort of outworld easily while there's already sand & a critter in there?

[Batspiderfish]

Hey Batspiderfish- thanks for the reply! that's kinda what i figured! any ideas how to get the queen with her eggs out of there, or how to connect it to some sort of outworld easily while there's already sand & a critter in there?

If you can fit the whole farm into a foraging arena (after the colony has a decent number of workers), you can leave it open, let the nest dry out, and the ants will likely move to whatever you keep hydrated. Just be sure to mist the sand and keep it slightly damp until the colony is ready.

Might I ask what is living in the nest?

[idahoantgirl]

hi there! my five year old got us started on ant keeping after watching some of Mikey's videos & finding a few queens (how are there so many queens just cruising around?!).. i didn't really believe they were queens until they started laying eggs, so one of them ended up in our Uncle Milton's giant ant farm, where she proceeded to lay a bunch of eggs. does anyone have any suggestions as to what we should do with her now? apparently there are ant farms with the ability to connect tubes so you can have multiple farms altogether, but ours didn't come with anything like that.

thanks for any suggestions you might have!!
-beth

p.s.- i just remembered that when i was a kid my best friend & i had imaginary ants as friends that would travel through outlets & holes in walls to talk with each other. guess this hobby was just meant to be!

AAAH! The colors! Their giving me a seizure!! lol just joking

[mANTra]

that is a very good idea, however unfortunately we got impatient and just opened the ant farm, retrieved the queen and the eggs that we could see and relocated her into a test tube. i was worried about her- she had had her eggs in her mouth in the ant farm but dropped them in process, but i see eggs in the test tube now & she seems to be doing alright. i did have another question- maybe for another part of the forum- but can queens be refrigerated? i wanted to give her a drop of honey but she's a fast one & i don't want her to escape while we're feeding her!

thanks!!

[mANTra]

hi there! my five year old got us started on ant keeping after watching some of Mikey's videos & finding a few queens (how are there so many queens just cruising around?!).. i didn't really believe they were queens until they started laying eggs, so one of them ended up in our Uncle Milton's giant ant farm, where she proceeded to lay a bunch of eggs. does anyone have any suggestions as to what we should do with her now? apparently there are ant farms with the ability to connect tubes so you can have multiple farms altogether, but ours didn't come with anything like that.

thanks for any suggestions you might have!!
-beth

p.s.- i just remembered that when i was a kid my best friend & i had imaginary ants as friends that would travel through outlets & holes in walls to talk with each other. guess this hobby was just meant to be!

AAAH! The colors! Their giving me a seizure!! lol just joking

SoRrY!