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Anonymous
hey /an/ I just bought this ant farm, and am desperate to find me a queen ant! I would ship away for the ants via mail - but fuck that I want a REAL ANT COLONY UP IN THIS SHIT!

Anyone have any pointers on how to find/catch a queen ant? Anyone know where I can purchase some juvenile hormone so I DONT have to catch a queen?? :)
>> Anonymous
find a ant nest digg it up till u find a queen or larve
>> Anonymous
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Trust me, you don't want to keep an ant colony in that shit, it'll won't last longer then two months.

First thing you do is get rid of the gel and put real sand in it, next find yourself a queen when there's a nuptial flight and put her in it, she'll start digging almost immediately and after that she'll start laying eggs and a couple of months later you have dozens of workers.

I added a pic of my Lasius niger antfarm.
>> Anonymous
>>288589
I just went to the side of my house and tore up some rotting wood.....ANTS POURED out of it, however I was unable to identify a queen (colony must have been old because I saw some HUGE soldiers that I mistook for queens at first). Since there were probably around a hundred ants I wasn't able to find a queen :(

Hopefully Ill have some more luck in the local park digging up some mounds.
>> Anonymous
>>288589
lolwut what you gonna feed those nigerants?
>> Anonymous
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>>288601

This is the complete set up, I feed them flies and honeydew.
>> Anonymous
>>288615
what's in the second tank to the right??
also, how did you go about creating your colony?
>> Anonymous
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>>288617

When you keep ants you always have to make sure you have three areas, a nest area, a forage area and a waste area.
The left tank is obviously the nest area and the one on the right is the forage/waste area where I feed them and where they can dispose of their trash.
This is only needed when you have a big colony though - mine contains about 100 workers at this moment.

When you catch a single queen, you should put them in a small test tube with a cotton ball holding back some water, after a month you'll get the first workers, you can then either keep them in the tube or put them in a nest (sand/gypsum/ytong)
>> Anonymous
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This is an example of a colony in a test tube nest.
>> Anonymous
reminds me of the good old days, wasting hours and hours away on sim ant.
>> Anonymous
>>288621
so basically.
catch a queen, place her in a test tube with some cotton (absorbant Im guessing) and wait till she lays some eggs?
Couldn't I just place her directly in the tank with some workers???
>> Anonymous
>>288632
you could, if you want the queen ripped apart
>> Anonymous
>>288635
I'm sure a foreign ant colony's workers would kill the queen, however, I plan on catching a queen with some of her own workers, Im assuming thats viable.
>> Anonymous
>>288639

You could do that, but take as much of the workers/brood as possible, not all queens are able to refound a complete colony with just a couple of workers.
>> Anonymous
So I went out and caught about 50 small ants from what seemed to be a single colony. Placed them in my tank and into my closet for some quiet dark time. Little did I know that these bitches were able to climb out of the AIR HOLES on the sides of the tank. Basically now what I need to is block up those holes while still providing sufficient oxygen circulation to the tank. Does /an/ know how I might go about doing this??

tl;dr - need a means to cover air holes so that tiny ants cannot escape but can still breathe.
>> Anonymous
>>288843
lol. thats funny. seal the holes and drill smaller ones? or cover with tape.

I tried the whole digging up a colony thing. It didnt go well. But if your outside enough. Eventually you'll run across 1 or a million.

we now have 2 ant threads. woot. taking over /an/t
>> Anonymous
I would have a lot of respect for you OP if you use a fire ant queen, raise an army and unleash them upon your enemies, making them itchy and burny.
>> Anonymous
>>288569
Well first you'll have to evolve a spire, then a greater spire to allow creation of the queen's nest

after that it's only 200 Minerals and 50 vespene gas
>> Anonymous
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>>288968
>> Anonymous
>>288930

fire ants are pussies, bullet ants ftw!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmidt_Sting_Pain_Index
>> Anonymous
>>290349

The Satere-Mawe people of Brazil use intentional bullet ant stings as part of their initiation rites to become a warrior. The ants are first rendered unconscious by submerging them in a natural chloroform, and then hundreds of them are woven into a glove made out of leaves (which resembles a large oven mitt), stinger facing inward. When the ants regain consciousness, a boy slips the glove onto his hand. The goal of this initiation rite is to keep the glove on for a full ten minutes. When finished, the boy's hand and part of his arm are temporarily paralyzed because of the ant venom, and he may shake uncontrollably for days. The only "protection" provided is a coating of charcoal on the hands, supposedly to confuse the ants and inhibit their stinging. To fully complete the initiation, however, the boys must go through the ordeal a total of 20 times over the course of several months or even years.

I WANT A COLONY