Hello Formiculture Members and ant lovers!
Mikey here, an avid ant keeper/lover, vlogger at the AntsCanada Youtube Channel, and owner/founder of the AntsCanada Ants Store. I have always been a fan of this Formiculture forum since its beginnings and have watched it grow over time. I am good friends with Drew, the mastermind behind Formiculture, and have many friends on this site, and I see that it has done great things at growing ant keeping knowledge and the global online ant community.
I felt it would be a great idea to get connected and contribute to these boards more, and make more ant friends on here. Drew has been kind enough to start this section for AntsCanada for us to participate and engage in. Thank you, Drew!
There are a few things I would like to say as my first post in this Formiculture subforum.
About The AntsCanada Ants Store
A little about AntsCanada: we promote the ant keeping hobby, myrmecology, ecology, and habitat conservation. Our aim is to make pet ant keeping simple and enjoyable and thereby promote ant awareness and inspire conservation. I founded the AntsCanada Ants Store in 2009 after launching the AntsCanada Youtube channel, and we have since shipped formicariums and ant keeping gear worldwide to 35 countries (as of May 31st, 2015). We also run the GAN Project which is a worldwide initiative to help ant keepers sell locally raised ants to local ant keepers looking for ant colonies to stock their formicariums, in hopes to foster local ant communities and also eliminate the irresponsible and dangerous practice of importing ant fauna to foreign territory. AntsCanada today is also involved with scientific research and builds ant exhibits for museums around the world. We have been featured on the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet, and also do presentations in school settings and pet expos. We host the AntsCanada Youtube Channel and the AntsCanada Facebook Page, The Ultimate Ants & Myrmecology Facebook Group, the AntsCanada Twitter Page, and AntsCanada Instagram. We manufacture all of our products in China and USA. The AntsCanada team consists of 3 ant lovers and a wonderful and enthusiastic family of GAN Farmers from around the world.
Formiculture is the bomb, so I promise to start posting more here.
I would like to start by saying, that I haven't been able to participate in online forums as much as I used to year ago, or as much as I'd like to, because I have been busy with AntsCanada operations. I will try my best to post frequently on here but for those who would like to get in direct touch with me, the best way to get a hold of me is to email me directly at mikeyjbustos@gmail.com or contact us through our contact page. I may not be able to get back to everyone who posts in this forum, so contacting me through either of those methods is the best way. Please allow a maximum of 2 days for me to respond as it takes me awhile soetimes to get through all of the messages at times. I usually get back to you within 24 hours.
Disclaimer: If you're mean, I will ignore you. 
Second, as a disclaimer: I have had a few very negative experiences in the past with individuals flaming me and AntsCanada in the forums and so let me also state that I would like this thread to be a place for positiveness and learning. I am completely open to criticism, negative and positive, and actually require those who purchase and support our products to give feedback so we can more efficiently create better products, but I will not answer or address any rude, tactless, or otherwise bashing-type comments. I will simply ignore them. If you would like to share these rude sentiments, please send them to me directly through my email above or post in another thread. I do my best to stay out of drama and focus on helping ant keepers improve their ant keeping experiences, and hate the forum "eye sore" of fighting or rude people. If I had more personal time, I would spend it defending and trying to iron out my relationships with anyone who might have a chip on their shoulder with AntsCanada or myself, but if you know me personally, I am quite friendly, diplomatic, will go out of my way to make amends, and don't do well with drama or hate. Ant keeping should be a fun activity that cultures learning and discovery, not one that cultures drama, hate, or immaturity. Our tag line is "Ant love forever" and for my team and I, that also applies to people towards other people.
Please do post here! I want to get to know you and hear out your ideas and stories.
Third, I encourage all of you who may have dealt with us in any way to post about your experience with our formicariums or GAN Project, or things you may have liked/disliked about our videos so we can continue to improve our operations and various initiatives. Please keep it clean, keep it objective, and if it makes me feel uncomfortable I will ask you to take it privately through email. Please introduce yourselves. I would love to get to know you guys and learn about your ants, and your ideas.
Ant Keepers' Valid Role in Science
Fourth, we ant keepers are the new breed of myrmecologists and we should really focus on this. When I first started ant keeping I knew we ant keepers, though amateur and academically unqualified, have a very important role in the contribution to the world of entomology. Some of the stuff I've been able to observe and film for instance just on my end has been pretty amazing: e.g. the inside activities of a weaver ant nest, the pupating of an endoparasitic fly, and the process of food consumption in ants. I am sure many here have been able to observe and document lots of equally interesting things that might not be readily observable in the field or in a laboratory. We are important to research and it is another reason why I feel participating in these boards (in the right manner) is so essential. I do hope the ant community continues to grow as much as it has over the past few years, and hope we can do this in a manner that is mature and conducive to learning. This is just a reiteration of why I take ant keeping so seriously and also why I will not engage in anything dramatic or confrontational or any personal attack, but will welcome criticisms or helpful suggestions.
Anyway, on to today's contribution: here is our latest video on our new line of genus- tailored formicariums - The Hybrid Nest. Hope you guys can check it out at our store. Please feel free to share videos or photos of your ants in Hybrid Nests (or other AntsCanada products or your ants purchased through our GAN Project):
Ant love forever.
Mikey
Edited by AntsCanada, May 31 2015 - 4:16 AM.
