The AntsCanada Ant Forum's

Hello, my name is Josh, I am 28 and relatively new to ant keeping.

When I was a kid I had a museum gift shop type ant farm without queens, Initially interesting but ultimately disappointing.

Looking forward to my first "real" colony. Unfortunately while AZ has an abundance of ants across the state, however in my area I am likely to only catch fire ants or some very tiny ants.

If only there were a GAN farmer in AZ.

So the fire ants I mentioned would be the native fire ant called Solenopsis xyloni(according to a few hours on goggle and comparing pictures and location data), which as it would happen should begin their nuptial flight soon. If I manage to catch any producing queens I was thinking about getting the Solenopsis hybrid nest small for them. Just waiting for the rain.

Looking forward to participating in the community now that I am no longer lurking.

Welcome! Great to see that you are getting into the hobby! My one tip that I can give you is too not peek at your queens in their test tube set ups too much. They will eat their eggs or stop laying at all. Try to limit yourself to one peek every 3-4 weeks. But make sure you can monitor the water portion. This can be achieved by wrapping a peace of paper around her cell leaving the water end open. Welcome!

Great tip, it has actually made me aware of an issue with my original plan of making a cardboard cut out fold a box for the tubes. I would have to had taken them out of the box all exposed when checking their water or mold situation. Partial paper wrap implementation imminent!

Glad it helped Queens can not see red light so if you make a room dark and leave one red bulb you can peek with no harm done(got that idea from larynx). Also vibrations affect them too.

Arizona is also home to several Harvester ant species (Pogonomyrmex). Here in Utah, Harvester ants will typically fly in late July or early August after a good rainstorm. They are a relatively large species and I have enjoyed keeping them. You may want to keep your eye out for them in a couple of months. It might be a good idea to find a few mature colonies so you can check on them when nuptial flight day gets closer. There nests are usually identified by a large mound in a cleared area. The mound is usually covered with pebbles.

I have a picture of one as the top banner of my youtube channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCe4iSfRDClHaTmrP7VNdJ9g

Thank you ooper01,
Would you happen to know if there would be much variance in the nuptial flight times? We are neighbor's so certainly not by that much.

Either way, I am going to have to rely on luck for the most part and hope the weather plays nice with my schedule. As far as I am aware all the interesting ant hot-spots are quite some distance away. For example a common Pogonomyrmex species is P. maricopa, This ant has been found several times 100+ miles from me. Who knows maybe with practice at identification I might notice them among all the Solenopsis around here.

Not that I would want to keep one but check out Dasymutilla magnifica also know as the cow killer or the red velvet ant.

On a side not, sorta bothering me, the post spell checker does not accommodate many ant words.

I seen a cow killer yesterday in my yard,I have thought about keeping one,I have never seen a male yet.

I have thought about keeping one

They are quite a pretty ant species and very tempting to keep. However I cannot stress enough the fact that they can be really dangerous(Especially out here in AZ). Seeing as I just started out might make it something like a 5 year goal should this hobby extend that duration and by that time should have ample experience/knowledge to deal with the hazards(optimistically).

Cow killers is solitary wasp.Thats why they have such a bad sting.Never want two females in the same container.

Hey just wanted to say Hello and Welcome. I too just joined recently and also live in Arizona in Gilbert and searching for different species as well. I did manage to catch quite a few at my apartment and waiting a good month to see if they were worth the catch. I really really want to catch some Pogonomyrmex.

Anyways, good luck and hope to see your colonies soon!