New Guy and Need a little help

[Alaydia]

If you can swing the cost, an all-you-need hybrid kit from AC would be my recommendation, simply because it's easy to use/set up and very hard for ants to escape from. Completely and utterly disagree with one thing other posters said, though - do NOT use commercial bird seed for seed-eating ants. The shells are way too hard and the ants can't get into them. Use Kentucky bluegrass seed or, better yet, dandelion seeds. Thistle seed may work, too. You may also need a heat source. If your home is air conditioned, the ants will likely need some source of heat to keep their nest at an optimum temperature. Warmer nests = faster growth!

I have to also disagree a bit with the seed comment and sow my own information in here.
Even if the seeds or shells are harder, they still managed to crack them open and eat them. I mean, they may not have the power straight at the beginning but if they have bigger headed ants then they should be able to. They eat seeds and some seeds also need to be cut and grinded. Not sure which seeds are too hard tho. They may be a bit difficult to open of they are covered in honey (seed sticks) or those round yellow ones because they are spherical and therefore hard to grab but loose seeds should be fine.

Someone once told me on one of my videos, that the queen of the messor barbarus colony helps with breaking big seeds. I can try to find it if I have to provide proof.

True, but the really hard seeds, like those in bird feed, ants have a very clever way to open - they don't. What they do is let them sprout in the nest and then eat them. The problem with this is that this can cause a real mess in the nest, especially with mold and mildew, along with everything else that goes along with garbage in the nest right next to a food supply. For more information, check out tarheelants.com. They specialize in seed eating ants and have a great guide that I've found very handy for my anniversary colony (that is currently suffering from a mite infestation, sob sob!).

[AntsLuxembourg]

I wonder what kinds of seeds that would be. The only seeds to hard to open or eat could be peanuts but I have never tried to offer my colony peanuts or walnuts or hazelnuts. It would be good to have a picture of those "hard" seeds to see exactly what you mean.

[Alaydia]

Do you know where i could order Red filter foil from? I googled it and most articles were about that tictok trend and the creepers undoing it. The few that were actual filters were made to fit over flashlights. There was one more but im not sure if you meant that type it was the red tail light foil.

Don't worry too much about it. Jury is out as to if it even works. Better to just keep your ants in the dark.

Honestly, the only thing you need now are test tubes, water, and cotton balls. You shouldn't move your ants to a nest until they have well over 20 workers, at minimum. As for insects, a lot of people keep crickets, but I have better luck with wingless fruit flies you can buy in pet stores. Once you get some, you can grow your own with fruit fly media you can buy or make yourself. Best part is that they pose zero danger to your ants, so you can just add some and let the ants have fun chasing them around! Highly entertaining to watch.

[Jager89]

Do you know where i could order Red filter foil from? I googled it and most articles were about that tictok trend and the creepers undoing it. The few that were actual filters were made to fit over flashlights. There was one more but im not sure if you meant that type it was the red tail light foil.

Don't worry too much about it. Jury is out as to if it even works. Better to just keep your ants in the dark.

Honestly, the only thing you need now are test tubes, water, and cotton balls. You shouldn't move your ants to a nest until they have well over 20 workers, at minimum. As for insects, a lot of people keep crickets, but I have better luck with wingless fruit flies you can buy in pet stores. Once you get some, you can grow your own with fruit fly media you can buy or make yourself. Best part is that they pose zero danger to your ants, so you can just add some and let the ants have fun chasing them around! Highly entertaining to watch.

You cannot buy live feeder animals/incest's in any pet stores in the province i live in it is Illegal, because the extremist Peta type people ran a campaign here against live feeder mice so they banned all live feeder foods. Also catching crickets in the wild isn't much of an option unless i'm gonna drive outta town and go on a goose chase for em.

Also the red filter sheet isn't to leave them out it's to use when Observing the progress of the colony. Also from what i can tell (had to go to a photography shop to find the filter sheets) the ants don't notice when i use a redlight flashlight and the red filter sheet they don't run from the light it doesn't seem to bother them where as white led lights bother them on contact atleast from my experiance with my 2 Queens

[AM1C39]

What insects can you catch outside? If you do go get some crickets you can breed them, witch will be a good option.

[Jager89]

What insects can you catch outside? If you do go get some crickets you can breed them, witch will be a good option.

Moths, butterflies, regular flies, some super slim lime green bug that flies no idea what it is, grasshoppers during the summer, other ant species, earthworms after thunderstorms if lucky, centipedes if i dig like a foot to 2 feet into the dirt in my back yard but not enough to maintain a colony when its time. Crickets none at all in my area i would have to drive out to farm land for that. i honestly haven't seen crickets in my city since i was a child. Insect populations in the city i live in have declined a ton over the years mostly just get mosquitoes and dragonflies with very few grasshoppers in the summer for the past 4 years.

[AM1C39]

You can set up traps to catch some of does insects and could probably breed the grasshoppers.