The AntsCanada Ant Forum's

Just a heads up, I live in West Virginia and I have found a few colonies or founding queens so far this winter by looking through the rotten logs or old dry acorn/walnuts in the woods near my house. If you go out to a wooded area and CAREFULLY look through rotten logs and branches (try ones with not...

FYI I’m not an expert or anything..yet..! Lol Only relating personal advice or what I believe. Take from it what you’d like, if anything. I wouldn’t say it would cause damage as long as you don’t drastically change the temperature on them. Think of their natural environment. Just recently it was rel...

Honestly, if I were you I think I’d separate them. As mentioned above, it’s a possibility that they could be two different species of Myrmica. I’ve heard or read somewhere that accurately discerning between certain Myrmica ant species could potentially require the use of a microscope. I would separa...

Yes unfortunately as is with many and likely most ant species, adding a foreign wild ant into your captive nest is probably a no-no. ( Not that I overly recommend anyone do this unless they have an idea of what they are doing already, or are using a certain species of ant.) If you are absolutely SUR...

Hey Thanks for the replies! And sorry it took a while to get back on. I actually have changed a few things, one of which you all mentioned. I went to target and purchased the thin uncle Milton ant farm. I would have put something inside the vase to prevent the ants from going into the middle and for...

I may be wrong but maybe you should put a few cotton balls in the other water bottle as well? Not as wet as the really moist ones but maybe wet them then wring them out really good. This would give them a substrate they could pull at, while also giving them a soft, absorbent place to gather if conde...

So Lasius umbratus queens were going to be the main idea behind this ant set up however I had also found Lasius claviger queens which give off a citronella-like smell. Now I’ve decided to try to raise a claviger colony in this set up instead, although I think now I’ll probably just make a second one...

Oh and if you find that the cork does indeed mold...don’t use it. You’d save yourself a lot of trouble. The dead wood method I mentioned above sounds like it could potentially accomplish the same idea you had with the cork, allowing the ants to continue growing in number and excavate more tunnels as...

I’ll share some of my thoughts on this, For your first question, it seems possible that the cork board could mold..however I don’t have much experience using cork as a substrate or digging media. What I would recommend you do to find that out is to take a smal piece of the cork, dampen it and place ...

So happy that you were patient enough to enjoy this! Seeing first ninantics is so exciting lol Also I’m pretty sure infertile eggs develop into males? So even if she was infertile, her eggs would just develop into males instead of workers.