Hi! I'm new to this forum and have just made an account 2 days ago. I'm guessing you have already found out that I am from Canada (I wonder how?). Here, where I live, its pretty cold compared to many other places around the world where ants are found. Winters normally reach below -28*C for long periods of time. We don't have those exotic ants like bulldog ants, meat ants, harvester ants, leafcutter ants, etc... We just have the "standard" carpenter ants, pavement ants (tetramorium sp. e, not the colorful ones) Lasius ants and occasionally Crematogaster or Prenolepis. Do I mind? I guess a little. But there aren't nearly as many ant keepers here in Canada as there are in the U.S, Europe, Asia, or other places around the world, and I find joy in knowing that I'm special. I also like comparing the ants I can find here with the ants that everyone else talks about and how they found 20 queens in one day. (Congrats to you if you did, but that isn't possible in Canada, where I live.) However, I still get quite jealous often lol .
Now, lets talk more about my antkeeping experiences and my plans for my future on this forum.
I love ants and have been enjoying keeping, caring and studying them for 3 years now! Unfortunately, I shouldn't say this to random people in real life anymore as everyone always steps on ants/teases me on this interest. But I ain't gonna quit what I love doing {me-->} ! I have good experience with small colonies, as I have never had a large colony (over 40 workers) as of yet, and I can help others with queen/worker identification, hibernation tips, feeding help, different nest types for small colonies, what to do after catching a queen/first worker, etc... I keep ants exclusively as a hobby and to learn more about them and their amazing ANT-tics (get it?). I don't keep many colonies/queens like a lot of other members on this forum do (it's not like I can find many queens anyways), because I want to balance antkeeping with the rest of my life so I have time for everything (I'm not saying that those who DO have lots of colonies don't have a life, its just that my life is different than everyone else's, as none of us are the same. Sorry if what I said sounded offensive, I didn't mean it in an offensive way ). But that doesn't mean I don't ADORE ants!
Things I plan to learn on this forum are:
1. How to build nests
2. How to manage a large colony including feeding, housing, maintenance, etc...
3. Lots of new species/genera of ants and how to keep them
4. How to make vivariums with other organisms co-existing with ants (I may never actually do this, but it's still very interesting)
5. How to introduce and manage a "cleaning crew" (I don't believe that having a cleaning crew (springtails, woodlice, etc) is necessary (sure, its nice and won't do any harm) unless there is a mold buildup issue that you can't do much about or if you have a dirt nest)
6. Many different methods of housing or just keeping ants in general that different people practice
7. ALL of the challenges/problems one may face in antkeeping (trust me, I've encountered at least half of them )
8. Pretty much anything I don't know about ants/antkeeping
I hope I can help others learn about ants or get interested about ants and enjoy antkeeping as much as I do! (Also, you may have noticed by now, I'm already obsessed with this forum's emojis