Original Formicariums

[spencman101]

I was wondering if you can use one of the original ant farms for an ant farm with a queen instead of a few workers like the contanier says. I just find it a little cruel to make workers work mindlessly for no queen.

[JoeHostile1]

If your talking about the gel than no it won’t work. They are not suitable for ant colonies to live in. The reason they don’t come with queens/suggest putting queens in there is two fold.

1 the queen will probably not start a colony in one of them and if she does they probably won’t survive. If you put a queen in there that already had a couple workers all they would do is dig a little pit because that’s all the space they need. They wouldn’t build elaborate tunnels so the whole point of the farm would be wasted.

2. The reason the workers dig those tunnels is because they have no queen and they are in search of their nest. They are digging exploratory tunnels to locate their colony. If their queen was in there they would have no need to search for their nest therefore no elaborate tunnels.

If you’re talking about the dirt ones you could put a colony in there. But now you have to keep the soil hydrated properly so they can tunnel without them collapsing and to provide the proper humidity levels. But again if you put a founding queen or a queen with a few workers they will not tunnel for no reason.

Both those types of farms that are designed only to let workers tunnel until they die of exhaustion or malnutrition are frowned upon by the hobbyist ant keeping community. Morally it’s probably not that big a deal to put a few workers in there to let a child watch them tunnel.

[AGENTSCEPTILE]

If your talking about the gel than no it won’t work. They are not suitable for ant colonies to live in. The reason they don’t come with queens/suggest putting queens in there is two fold.

1 the queen will probably not start a colony in one of them and if she does they probably won’t survive. If you put a queen in there that already had a couple workers all they would do is dig a little pit because that’s all the space they need. They wouldn’t build elaborate tunnels so the whole point of the farm would be wasted.

2. The reason the workers dig those tunnels is because they have no queen and they are in search of their nest. They are digging exploratory tunnels to locate their colony. If their queen was in there they would have no need to search for their nest therefore no elaborate tunnels.

If you’re talking about the dirt ones you could put a colony in there. But now you have to keep the soil hydrated properly so they can tunnel without them collapsing and to provide the proper humidity levels. But again if you put a founding queen or a queen with a few workers they will not tunnel for no reason.

Both those types of farms that are designed only to let workers tunnel until they die of exhaustion or malnutrition are frowned upon by the hobbyist ant keeping community. Morally it’s probably not that big a deal to put a few workers in there to let a child watch them tunnel.

Amen!