I am in Southwest Michigan, and thinking of maybe finding someone with ants for sale instead of trying to find a queen... I'm new to this and not very good at knowing what I'm looking at but I really want to try again this year! Last year's attempt was a total accident, I stumbled on a queen meandering in the driveway, but she's the only one I've ever seen for sure.
I'm willing either to meet up or pay shipping, depending. My budget is somewhat limited but I also have no interest in short changing anybody so just talk to me, I'm sure we can work something out.
I'm not that picky re: species. It might be better if it was a somewhat beginner-friendly species. It will be the first colony I've ever raised. If they need exacting temperatures, moisture, pH, or like idk need to be fed unicorn blood or something maybe save that for someone more experienced and let me have y'know, something that will enjoy a formicarium and some wax worms and honey and stuff. I made a truly swank little formicarium + outworld setup with fake rocks and also small plastic dinosaurs so they will have a good home where they can climb on an ankylosaurus and I don't know if you'll get many people willing to give your ants that. It will be like they get to go to the zoo every day. Not really. They super won't care. As long as I feed them I'm sure they wouldn't even notice if their outworld looked completely stupid and boring. Ants mostly worry about very simple and practical things and I don't think the queens ever teach them about dinosaurs. But I do promise faithfully to be nice to them.
I'd rather start with a queen, or a queen and a few workers than buy like a full, established colony with a bunch of workers- I want to watch the colony grow!
