50 replies to this topic

[Antennal_Scrobe]

So I know Formiculture.com was founded in 2013. But what is the history of antkeeping before this? I've never really seen any kind of timeline or explanation of this hobby's history, and I was wondering if anyone who has been into ants for more than a decade could weigh in on this.

Edited by Antennal_Scrobe, August 16 2019 - 2:44 PM.

[Silq]

Started back in the prehistoric age when Tyrannosaurus Rex were keeping Odontomachus tyrannicus or some say back when big J was keeping carpenter ants around 10 B.C.

[PacificNorthWestern]

I think first it was uncle miltons sand setup with Pogonomyrmex and sand that really sparked everyones interest. correct me if i'm wrong

[Antennal_Scrobe]

some say back when big J was keeping carpenter ants around 10 B.C.

Back in the good old days when we raised our ants in bronze test tubes and fed them fermented goat's milk.

[Antennal_Scrobe]

I think first it was uncle miltons sand setup with Pogonomyrmex and sand that really sparked everyones interest. correct me if i'm wrong

I think I have heard this, and it's absolutely true, but what happened between then and 2013 is what I really do not know.

[Antennal_Scrobe]

Interesting. The poll seems to show that most people on this site started keeping ants just a couple years ago. I wonder if Formiculture and other hobby sites caused this growth.

[PacificNorthWestern]

 

I think first it was uncle miltons sand setup with Pogonomyrmex and sand that really sparked everyones interest. correct me if i'm wrong

I think I have heard this, and it's absolutely true, but what happened between then and 2013 is what I really do not know.

 

i don't really know what happened between either

[dominatus]

I've always wanted to keep an ant farm, since a child. I had the mail order ones, but alas without a queen.... I always knew you needed a queen but really didn't make the effort to figure how to get one. That was in the late 90's. I've kept all sorts of critters over the years; praying mantises, tarantulas (still have 3 these days), millipedes and a turtle (still going strong) just to name a few. I knew more later in life about the subject but never really tried hunting queens. Watched some AntsCanada every now and then. Fast forward through a lot of ups and downs, I'm back near my parents helping them clean up the property and wouldn't you know carpenter ants everywhere. I try to keep track of their mating flights but no luck. Then one day I find a log on the burn pile, literally see the queen make a dash into the log. I wasted no time securing the log and the 100 ish worker strong colony with it. So the obsession began. I now have several founding queens waiting to see if I can make a successful colony like the one I found from scratch. I am super anxious about winter and my big colony surpassing a year mark with great success, but I don't plan on quitting the hobby for a long time no matter the outcome.

[Silq]

I've always wanted to keep an ant farm, since a child. I had the mail order ones, but alas without a queen.... I always knew you needed a queen but really didn't make the effort to figure how to get one. That was in the late 90's. I've kept all sorts of critters over the years; praying mantises, tarantulas (still have 3 these days), millipedes and a turtle (still going strong) just to name a few. I knew more later in life about the subject but never really tried hunting queens. Watched some AntsCanada every now and then.

This is pretty much my story too. Interested in 90s, couldn't figure a way to get ants. Fast forward 20 years later.. AntsCanada, etc

[dominatus]

 

I've always wanted to keep an ant farm, since a child. I had the mail order ones, but alas without a queen.... I always knew you needed a queen but really didn't make the effort to figure how to get one. That was in the late 90's. I've kept all sorts of critters over the years; praying mantises, tarantulas (still have 3 these days), millipedes and a turtle (still going strong) just to name a few. I knew more later in life about the subject but never really tried hunting queens. Watched some AntsCanada every now and then.

This is pretty much my story too. Interested in 90s, couldn't figure a way to get ants. Fast forward 20 years later.. AntsCanada, etc

 

I really think the distribution of information on the internet related to hunting queen ants is what did it. I think the interest was out there but it was just not obvious for most people about how to get a queen ant. I'm sure the dedicated found sources or figured it out but the average person just does not have the drive or connect the dots or even think an effort of researching would actually yield results. I don't know why, with my near obsession of all things with more than two legs, often more than four legs, but I didn't even think "hey, I bet there is a way to get new queens. I bet someone out there knows something about it or when they mate." Seems so obvious once I read / heard it but in my youth I just never had had that thought. At the time I just moved onto other critters once I figured getting and taking care of a queen ant was very, very difficult.

Edited by dominatus, August 15 2019 - 6:41 PM.

[Acutus]

I've kept ants ever since I was young but I found out through a friend who found out from Ants Canada that you could actually get Queens and keep real colonies!! I always thought Queens were deep underground and you couldn't get one and didn't realize they did flights and stuff. As soon as I knew it was possible I went all out to learn as much as I could and come spring thsi year I found my first colony with a Queen!

[Antennal_Scrobe]

Wow. I didn't expect that there would be no one who had kept ants longer than 5 years. So at least 95 percent of us don't predate Formiculture in this hobby.

[PacificNorthWestern]

a lot of people who have been doing this hobby for a while have been inactive or maybe even stopped keeping ants

[dermy]

I would have voted on the poll but the First and Second poll questions contradict themselves if you've been keeping ants for longer than 5+ years. I may not be keeping ants at the moment but I was keeping them from Around 2006(Mostly Camponotus, because I thought every ant species had queens that big) -2018 (kind of if you consider having someone ruin every ant colony as "Keeping Ants") Way back in the late 2000's and early 2010's were some of the best years of the hobby for me. There was a website called antfarm yuku ran by a Grammar crazy guy known as AntDude, sure it was annoying having someone say "Please Capitalize and properly punctuate your sentences." but most of us just dealt with and kept discussing ants, ant keeping etc. Way back then there was no "AntsCanada, THA, ByFormica etc." or any real "Ant Keeping Store" (In North America anyway, there was AntStore from Germany but we are talking about North American Ant Keeping not German Ant Keeping, of which I have no experience other than looking over at their forums and the pictures of their Formicariums, Journals, videos etc.) (and yes there was a time when I was seriously passionate about Ant Keeping, probably from around the start of my Hobby till around the year or so before I discontinued keeping ants.

 

Anyway onto AntFarm Yuku, I remember Plaster Nests being the big thing. Lots of people were building Plaster nests for their colonies, after rearing them in the good old Test-Tube setup. (keep in mind, as I've said earlier, there wasn't really anyone selling Formicariums) There were other nests as well, but the Plaster ones seemed to be the big majority and the most popular it seemed in early 2006-2007. It was a pretty tight niche community, with some of the faces that we still "Sometimes" see around here, such as Reacker, Mercuita, MILTA, and Vendyan (brings back nostalgia of reading his Journals and going "Can't wait for him to post Pictures, and then never getting them   ) as well as a few others (I don't even think Dspdrew was around at that time, there were others as well, some may remember a guy known as Dr. Ant or something along those lines)

There was a lot of Journals, mostly without pictures (shockingly when there was they were either mediocre or sometimes really good, it was 2008-2009 so.... yeah esp with most being in the hobby as a cheap Hobby you didn't really have the great expectations you have today, a lot of IDing sometimes was based solely off a picture that gave you the general idea of "At Least it's an Ant" and most of the information that was used to Identify the Species was given in writing, it went sort of like a "more information means you are more likely to get a response, less information and you are basically just gonna get the generic "Looks like a queen" etc.) A lot of the species that people kept were the common ones, Formica, Lasius, Campoonotus, Myrmica, Tetramorium etc. I'm not too sure if many people were keeping Pogonomyrmex or anything along those "exotic very fancy ants" heck not many people were keeping those "Solonopsis" ants either (was a glorious time of people actually keeping ants that were local instead of wanting big colonies of Fire Ants) There was no "beacon" of the Ant Keeping Community, most of it was reading instead of watching videos etc. Lots and lots of reading. Reading People's Journals, learning from the Sticky'd Ant Care Sheet that was eventually put up on Yuku, as well as a lot of preaching about "Native Local Species" instead of Invasives. Keeping Invasive Ant Species used to be frowned upon quite a bit.

 

Around 2008-2009 things started to shift in the Ant Keeping Community, sure it was always changing but this time it changed in a big way, there started to be "Ant Keeping Company's" incl. AntsCanada around 2009 (Yes I was keeping ants before AntsCanada was a thing) and THA (I'm about 100% sure at this point ByFormica wasn't around, there were other random people as well selling Formicariums etc. but I don't think they had companies more just hobbyists selling to other hobbyists.) Antscanada did not come on the scene and BLOW UP the ant keeping community, not by a long shot, but you could tell he was either gonna fizzle out in a month or two, or in the case of what did happen, actually end up running what is now known as probably the biggest Ant Keeping Store in North America (can't stress that enough North America, I'm not gonna talk much if at all about Europe, UK, etc. because I have very little experience in that area, this is solely based off my own Experiences)

 

Sadly from around 2011-early 2012 I think I lost internet etc. so I don't have all the timeline (I'm not gonna bother telling you what happened to my internet will just go with I didn't have it haha) So around 2013 when I finally got back into the Community Aspect of Ant Keeping (I was still keeping ants, watching the flights, etc. by then I was an expert in my general area of knowing around the time every species I have around me was going to fly, Camponotus around the first week of May, June was pretty much a growing month of the wild colonies to produce their Alates, July/Early August was the Formica, some Lasius (not as big as the ones in Sept.) Myrmica usually flew in the Mid-Late August and of course the big flight of the year is usually the Lasius, around late August/Early September, although I will say, you can usually find Formica queens from August till around late September, I'm not 100% sure if these queens would found though as you would likely wanna get them when they fly in the big numbers/main flights). I came around another few Ant Forums (Yuku was starting to lose it's big hold on the North American Hobby, but I'll leave that for the people who know what I'm talking about since I don't want this to be full of drama etc.) there was like a million people starting/making their own ant forums etc. So I remember joining a few of them around 2012 I joined one that I slowly became a Moderator of (no not Formiculture) as well as "Joining" another one, but that one was based off the UK and I really only joined so I could read people's Journals since some had some fancy ants, like Messor, Leaf Cutters, Lasius niger, etc. I noticed they tended to either keep them in Cork Nests (popular amongst Messor) or in the case of Leaf Cutters very elebrate setups with lots of rooms etc. to accommodate the fungus gardens as well as huge foraging areas for the leaves that the colony collects to feed the fungus gardens. Sometime in Late 2013 the forum I was a Moderator on died, so I had to find a new Home, this was also around the time AntsCanada was slowly (not quite yet) gaining popularity, I think this was when he finally moved to the Philippines and started keeping more "Exotic" Species, such as Solonopsis etc. And for anyone who knows AntsCanada for his "Fire Ants" believe it or not he had many Fire Ant Colonies before he actually got the one that rose him up, so if you are ever going through his older videos, those fire ant colonies are not the same Fire Ant Colony as his "Fire Nation". I also remember he had a Leaf weaver Ant Colony as well back then,

 

Anyway around 2014 I joined Formiculture, met some of the same people I had originally known from Antfarm Yuku, as well as some other people I've known for a long long time, including Subverted, who I knew from other areas. I remember Dspdrew as well from Yuku from right around when I left unexpectedly, but I don't recall really conversing much with him other than laughing at some infamous threads from Yuku during it's final days of grace (it's harsh but like I said, there is a reason I'm writing this on Formiculture and not on Yuku) anyway I saw this Forum in the search results/on Yuku (I can't remember which it was, but I remember it wasn't very big yet, and a lot of the older members were still around, wook, Crystals, Mercuita, and some others from the Yuku days. Even in 2014 AntsCanada wasn't as big of a force of the Hobby as he is now, sure everyone who was a part of the Hobby knew him, some from way back in 2009 when he first Joined the Yuku Forum.

 

 

2014-2015 was a pretty interesting year, I was getting back into everything, but slowly started having issues with my colonies being messed with, but I still tried my best to keep them even if it meant having to completely kill entire colonies because of the frustration of trying to get them re-built (some species can bounce back, but some just never do.....) I think between 2014-2017 I had around 20-30 Myrmica Colonies, incl. some with as many as 70+ Queens all get killed off....... So if you feel bad about 1 or 2 dead queens, just imagine having a huge colony with thousands of workers and that many queens all dying off (not from your negligence but due to other factors) pretty crummy, and is the entire reason I think my "Hobby" started to die out in 2018 now in 2019 being completely dead, not even a nice sized Myrmica colony rustles my interests anymore.

 

Fast Forward to 2016, and things started to blow up in the hobby, esp around fall of 2016. This was around the time AntsCanada became what he is know, he uploaded a video now known as "My Fire Ants Are Planning An Escape". Anyone who was here prior to that will remember it was called something else with OMG in the title.... Anyway around that time a lot of people started to join up, and started posting a lot of ID Request threads (tons of which did not follow the guide that was stickied at the top of the Subforum Cough Cough) and the hobby grew substantially, was this a good thing, yes and no. Let me explain; AntsCanada was keeping what is known as Solonopsis geminata, aka Fire Ants. This caused a lot of people (yes a lot of them were kids but that's not the point I'm not trying to attack anyone I'm just providing what I've seen personally) to want "Big Massive Ant Colonies of Fire Ants" a trend I was hoping would die out but if you look around I'm sure you can tell it sadly hasn't (I really do miss the old days where people wanted to keep Formica, Lasius, Camponotus etc. and not just stupid fire ants that they then can't contain and have to get rid of anyway) Then there was his Yellow Crazy Ants, Black Crazy Ants ect. that threw gasoline on the already burning fire of keeping Invasive is cool, just look at AntsCanada craze. There was other stuff as well but that was the big boom the hobby has experienced. I'm sure anyone else from that time period of 2009-2014 can tell you there was a big shift in the whole community, I'm just giving my take on it, probably leaving some stuff out (some on purpose because they don't really matter, such as the infamous AC Forums where we all thought this place was dead, Yuku finally dying out to a sprinkle of what it once was, etc.) As I've said I'm sure I've missed things etc. but thought as the one who seems to be from those days, and still frequents somewhat that I'd give my take/information. (some of it might be personal stuff but hey it's nice to know that sometimes even after 10+ years of a hobby you can still just suddenly lose interest (although mine was more gradual) which is what happens to quite a few in just the first year or two, that's why you probably sadly see a lot of members come and go)

 

Around 2017-2018 I had a few colonies but nothing major, I got a few founding colonies of Camponotus, Formica, Lasius and a few Myrmica colonies, but that was about it, I was still very interested in the Ants, but my focus shifted to watching Flights of which I could almost pin-point the exact date of some species (Camponotus esp.) So for anyone who is new, it might take a bit, but I bet in a few years time you too can memorize the time for each species you want so you can be out there to get them during the flights, esp. watching them fly from their nests, if you can because that's one of the best experiences of Anting/Hobby Ant keeping you can get, my passion for "Keeping" ants may have died but I still do enjoy an ant flight or two

[Antennal_Scrobe]

Thanks! This was just what I wanted! Also thanks for pointing out the contradictory question, I will fix that.

[Antennal_Scrobe]

 

 

I've always wanted to keep an ant farm, since a child. I had the mail order ones, but alas without a queen.... I always knew you needed a queen but really didn't make the effort to figure how to get one. That was in the late 90's. I've kept all sorts of critters over the years; praying mantises, tarantulas (still have 3 these days), millipedes and a turtle (still going strong) just to name a few. I knew more later in life about the subject but never really tried hunting queens. Watched some AntsCanada every now and then.

This is pretty much my story too. Interested in 90s, couldn't figure a way to get ants. Fast forward 20 years later.. AntsCanada, etc

 

I really think the distribution of information on the internet related to hunting queen ants is what did it. I think the interest was out there but it was just not obvious for most people about how to get a queen ant. I'm sure the dedicated found sources or figured it out but the average person just does not have the drive or connect the dots or even think an effort of researching would actually yield results. I don't know why, with my near obsession of all things with more than two legs, often more than four legs, but I didn't even think "hey, I bet there is a way to get new queens. I bet someone out there knows something about it or when they mate." Seems so obvious once I read / heard it but in my youth I just never had had that thought. At the time I just moved onto other critters once I figured getting and taking care of a queen ant was very, very difficult.

 

I think the same would apply to me. I would have wanted to keep ants, but I knew an ant farm wasn't a "real" colony without a queen, and just assumed that I couldn't realistically get one. 

Edited by Antennal_Scrobe, August 16 2019 - 2:54 PM.

[FSTP]

Wow Dermy, Very nice.

[Reacker]

I've been doing ant things in real life and on the internet since the very late 90's, and only really got active online around 2003.  Antdude's Ant Farm Message Board was around for quite a few years by that point; I think it originated in the 90s but I don't know for sure. It was populated by some really smart people and actual Myrmecologists so if you did a decent job asking your question you could get some high quality answers.

 

Dermy's post largely covers a lot of the North American online ant stuff but it should be noted that there were actually a lot of really cool ant keeping websites up around the year 2000 or so with tutorials on how to build various kinds of formicariums.A lot of cool looking setups constructed primarily out of laboratory glassware that you don't see anymore because methods have developed beyond that, and its now not just scientists who are interested in keeping ants. There was even a website where someone was selling dyed plaster nests, wood frame nests, etc with a live webcam of a Camponotus colony. This person had all of their stuff for sale but I remember it being far more expensive than a lot of stuff available today. Around 2004 or so I remember visiting the German Ant Store website and they had a lot of really cool stuff. Their forums also had way more advanced setups than anything I've seen in the English speaking ant world until very recent years. The English speaking ant community was hilariously behind things being done in Europe and as far as I know may still be. 

 

But like a lot of the "early" internet, just about all of that old stuff is gone. It's been replaced by facebook groups, discords, and forums/blogs connected to companies selling ant keeping things.

Edited by Reacker, August 16 2019 - 3:20 PM.

[T.C.]

I've been doing ant things in real life and on the internet since the very late 90's, and only really got active online around 2003.  Antdude's Ant Farm Message Board was around for quite a few years by that point; I think it originated in the 90s but I don't know for sure. It was populated by some really smart people and actual Myrmecologists so if you did a decent job asking your question you could get some high quality answers.
 
Dermy's post largely covers a lot of the North American online ant stuff but it should be noted that there were actually a lot of really cool ant keeping websites up around the year 2000 or so with tutorials on how to build various kinds of formicariums.A lot of cool looking setups constructed primarily out of laboratory glassware that you don't see anymore because methods have developed beyond that, and its now not just scientists who are interested in keeping ants. There was even a website where someone was selling dyed plaster nests, wood frame nests, etc with a live webcam of a Camponotus colony. This person had all of their stuff for sale but I remember it being far more expensive than a lot of stuff available today. Around 2004 or so I remember visiting the German Ant Store website and they had a lot of really cool stuff. Their forums also had way more advanced setups than anything I've seen in the English speaking ant world until very recent years. The English speaking ant community was hilariously behind things being done in Europe and as far as I know may still be. 
 
But like a lot of the "early" internet, just about all of that old stuff is gone. It's been replaced by facebook groups, discords, and forums/blogs connected to companies selling ant keeping things.

Yeah and what's funny know is even forums and facebook are starting to get overthrown too.

[FSTP]

 

 

 So if you feel bad about 1 or 2 dead queens, just imagine having a huge colony with thousands of workers and that many queens all dying off (not from your negligence but due to other factors) pretty crummy, and is the entire reason I think my "Hobby" started to die out in 2018 now in 2019 being completely dead, not even a nice sized Myrmica colony rustles my interests anymore.

 

 

 

I think you mean hundreds of thousands.

Edited by FSTP, August 16 2019 - 5:42 PM.