9 replies to this topic

[AntPerson76]

If there already was a topic like this I couldn't find it (I didn't look hard), but I'm going to share my story of antkeeping. Back in 2018, I was scrolling through YouTube (I was supposed to be watching videos for school but I (mostly) finished them anyways) and suddenly stumbled upon Ants Canada's fire ant series. I forgot the exact video, but at the time it was one of his newer fire ant colonies. I clicked on the video, and watched a few minutes before being called for lunch. From then on, my interest in ants grew and grew.
I started looking in my yard for queen ants, and basically destroyed my yard and decimated the population of "native" ants in my yard. After that, I gave up, but walked away with my nylanderia in a jar colony. I found multiple more species as my knowledge of ants grew, and by 2021 I was at my peak. I had at least 10 colonies, but then a few died and this year I had only 3 colonies. I knew this summer would grow my collection though, and now I number at 7.
It's been in the back of my mind for a long time, but while listening to music today I was thinking. Antkeeping brings me joy for many reasons I wasn't too sure about until now. It's been my hobby and part of me for a long long time, and it's magical. What other people would squish, or run away from, ant keepers observe and care for.
There's something about catching a queen and raising her while she cleans her brood and watches over them carefully, and then when they emerge they get to eat their first meal, which is heartwarming to watch.
Keeping ants is like being the god of a small universe inside of your own, watching them grow and seeing empires rise and fall right before your eyes. The way they communicate and panick when you open the lid and expose them to the outside air.
The amount of mis information about ants spreading around is painful to see, for example one of the common ones is people seeing any red ant and calling it a fire ant.
But I think with people like Antscanada informing people of the amazing creatures ants are, we are helping the community and saving a species that is important to our environment. I'm not going to say too much more, but I guess I needed to express how antkeeping makes me feel. It's an amazing hobby, and being only a few months old to the forum, I would like to know your stories of how you ended up in keeping ants in your rooms.

[Virginian_ants]

Similar i was scrolling YouTube 2019 (should've been doing homework) and I saw a video of the black nights.

[DinoH]

I was watching a video from The Dice Tower about a board game about ants and I saw at the next videos sugestions a video of Ants Canada's fire ant series like you.

Do you Have discord? Are you in DVM Ant Keepers?

Edited by DinoH, August 14 2023 - 4:38 PM.

[Manitobant]

I had the exact same experience. Was randomly scrolling through youtube when I stumbled upon AC’s video of the fire ants eating the pregnant cockroach. Since i was 4 years old i have been interested in insects, but before that video I never really cared about ants and just ignored them in favour of other groups.

[AntsCali098]

I used to always love animals and different insects, but never knew about ant keeping before an ac video 3 years ago came up on my recommended, something about his fire ants escaping. I remember falling in love with it after that and finally getting a pheidole queen from eBay after.

[Ernteameise]

Have always been fascinated with ants since I was a little kid.

In my youth, I had my first formicarium, a re-purposed fish-tank where I kept Formica wood ants.

I took part in the regional science fair with my ants (having planned out and written a whole study on them all by myself).

I qualified for the state competition and in the end won some great prizes.

My teachers at school actually had not supported me- quite the opposite, the head of biology tried to discourage me, telling me my self-written study was male cattle droppings and nobody would accept that.

When I returned home with my prizes, still no recognition, but the head of biology teacher coined my nickname "Frau Professor" which he used from then on, instead of calling me by my name.

I took this as a badge of honour, knowing that this §$%&?&%! would never break out of his narrow world-view.

 

Fast forward 30 years, and I re-discovered my love while casually browsing Amazon for something completely different and some ant farms and equipment popped up.

Wow, so much cool stuff!

And no need to assemble some semi-ugly home-made stuff (I have two left hands and no artistic qualities) but you can now buy the most amazing formicariums.

This would all have been a dream for my youth self back then.

I love my girls.

[ANTdrew]

One of these days I’ll watch some of these AntsCanada videos. My story began when I got my own house and got really into wildlife habitat gardening and native plants. I got obsessed with bees and social insects in general. Reading EO Wilson’s Journey to the Ants was what really set the hook. The end of the book has a description of rudimentary ways to keep ants in a lab. That’s what really got me thinking about keeping my own colony. I continued reading more and researching on the interweb until I eventually found a couple of Tetramorium queens in2018. I joined this forum shortly after that, and the rest is history.

[DinoH]

One of these days I’ll watch some of these AntsCanada videos. My story began when I got my own house and got really into wildlife habitat gardening and native plants. I got obsessed with bees and social insects in general. Reading EO Wilson’s Journey to the Ants was what really set the hook. The end of the book has a description of rudimentary ways to keep ants in a lab. That’s what really got me thinking about keeping my own colony. I continued reading more and researching on the interweb until I eventually found a couple of Tetramorium queens in2018. I joined this forum shortly after that, and the rest is history.

EO Wilson’s Book is introducing me to Myrmecology. When my biology teacher saw that I had an interest in Entomology he gave me some books about it, and now I want to be an Entomologist or Biologist. I had a fascination in animals since I can remember and I loved to watch ant documentaries with my grandfather but I stopped this through the years but now my passion is back!

[Full_Frontal_Yeti]

I was finding rando vids on youtube and started watching people do vivariums.
It was all interesting, but far more effort than i tend ot get in for. Also bit more room and work space than i can supply.
 

 

I wound up finding ant specific vids in the side bar, and really got in for the create your own nest/outworld stuff.

Then i saw Tar Heel Ants stuff and wanted it on my shelf with or without ants. It was just aesthetically very pleasing little works of art to my eye.
 

As part of my homework prep to keep ants i found Ant's Canada youtube, and immediately got my intelligence insulted by seemingly arbitrary and uninformed "experiments" and a tone like it was pitching to the 6-12 year old demographic.
I was this close to walking away if that was going to be the middle bell of what the hobby was.

 

Then i found formiculture.com, was back on track, am totally happy to be keeping an ant colony now.
And am gathering the supplies and information to craft the next nest expansion as the colony is easily pushing into 150-200 count from the 28 they arrived as.

Edited by Full_Frontal_Yeti, August 16 2023 - 11:34 AM.

[house-of-ants.com]

Hi fellow ant-fans,

 

This is Martin from house-of-ants.com.

It is very interesting to read how you guys came to ant keeping. Thanks everyone for sharing. Here is my story:

I was always interested in nature and animals. Since I was a child, I used every chance to discover the environment, wherever I was. I even studied biology up to the grade of a PhD. One of the most fascinating things for me in nature are social insects like wasps, bees and ants.

I've never started an ant farm as a child but when my son became 10 years old, I've decided to introduce him into that fantastic hobby. I bought him a farm and a young colony (Camponotus nicobarensis). Very soon after I became very enthusiastic about it and started three more ant farms (Ectatomma ruidum, Pheidole megacephala, Camponotus ligniperdus).

When my family and I moved to Australia (we lived in Germany) I was amazed by the ants on this continent. But because I couldn't find quite the right ant farm, I started developing and building my own. After successfully establishing of several colonies (10 farms so far, 5 different bull-ant species) and making improvements to the systems, I've decided to sell them to other Australian ant-fans. So, here I am.

 

All the best, Martin 

www.house-of-ants.com