Have you ever thought about what it might be like to keep pet ants?
Or maybe you think: Ew why would anyone find the idea of ant keeping appealing?
Well, today, we’ll take a quick break from our usual ant stories on this channel, to
teach you how to start, feed, house, grow, and care for your pet ant colony, and I promise
by the end, you’ll be an ant keeping pro, and understand why millions of us ant keepers
around the world have fallen in love with keeping ants as pets.
Welcome to the AntsCanada Ant Channel…
Tutorial Edition!
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Alright, so whether you’re curious and wanted to get started in ant keeping, or you’ve
been lucky enough to find a queen ant this nuptial flight season and want to know what
your next step is to start your own ant colony, this ultimate in-depth tutorial will take
you through all the basics of ant keeping, inform you on what to look out for, what you
need, and can expect, as well as answer your most frequently asked questions, to start
you out on the right path on your ant keeping journey.
And also guys, keep on watching until the end for our special AC Ant Farm Kit giveaway
from Antscanada.com.
Now, let me begin by saying if you look deep enough on this channel, I have a tonne of
helpful tutorials on a number of topics on ant keeping.
It’s actually how this channel started, so for all you O.G. subscribers to this channel,
perhaps this video might feel nostalgic.
I will try my best to compile everything you need to know about ant keeping in this one
video, but after watching, feel free to also check out my full AC Ant Tutorial Playlist
here to deep dive into specific topics, or even better, if you really want to become
an ant keeping expert, I highly recommend you pick up our newly revised Ultimate Ant
Keeping Handbook Ebook from our shop at antscanada.com, which for years has helped hundreds of thousands
of aspiring ant keepers get started in the hobby, and even has info on specific commonly
kept ant species.
Alright, now let’s get to our first step: Getting Started in Ant Keeping!
One of the most common questions I get from you guys is “What is a good beginner ant
species?” and my answer to that is basically, whatever species of ant you commonly see outside
your home.
Growing up in Toronto, Canada it would be pavement ants from the genus Tetramorium,
carpenter ants from the genus Camponotus, black field ants from the genus Formica, and
garden ants from the genus Lasius.
Whatever ants you commonly find outside your home is already adapted to your weather conditions,
water quality, food types, etc which will make your ant keeping experience a lot easier.
Plus, if you find them commonly outside, chances are finding a queen of those species will
be easier.
We never recommend buying ants online to be shipped to you from outside your country for
a number of reasons, which I outline in another tutorial here.
Plus, one of the advantages of keeping locally caught ants, is if you can’t keep them anymore
for whatever reason, you can always release them, with no negative impact on your local
ecosystem or the ants.
OK, so to get started, you basically need a queen ant, as she is the one to lay all
the eggs and will keep your colony growing for years.
Now there are three ways to get one.
You can 1) try digging up a colony with a queen from the wild, which is the hardest
option, because the workers will hide the queen well, and plus you risk injuring the
queen, or 2) you can try to catch a newly mated queen ant and start your colony from
there, which personally is the best option, or 3) you can try visiting our “Queen Ants
For Sale section” on our website antscanada.com, which isn’t a queen ant store, but rather
a listing of real ant keepers in your city or region who are selling ant colonies in
your city to people like you looking for an ant colony with a queen.
This is an ecologically and ethical option for sourcing your queen ant or ant colony
with a queen.
But let’s assume you would like to start from scratch, the classic way to start, by
catching your queen ant.
Here’s how to do it!
So, every Spring and Summer virgin reproductive queens and male ants, called alates, emerge
from their nests and fly into the air and mate.
Every species has their period in the year when they have these mating flights.
During these mating flights, queens will mate with multiple male ants and then fall to the
ground, break off their wings, and go off in search of a place to start their own colonies.
The males die, as they’re no longer needed.
So sad, but true.
But your job, is to try to find these mated queen ants preferably with wings broken off,
though wing shedding isn’t always an accurate indicator that the queens have mated so if
you find a queen ant with wings still, catch her as she may break her wings off later or
even keep them on forever.
Many people who might not be familiar with what a queen ant might look like, might see
a large worker ant and mistakenly think it’s a queen.
Basically, a queen ant is larger, has wing scars on her thorax, has a larger thorax than
regular worker ants, and has a larger abdomen.
I have tutorials on this channel on how to spot and distinguish queen ants from regular
worker ants, if you’re having a hard time, so look that up in our tutorial playlist if
you need to.
Once caught, you need to place the queen into what is called a test tube setup, which will
simulate the Earthen burrow the queen would have made to begin her egg-laying process.
The test tube setup is basically a test tube with water sectioned off to one side of the
test tube with cotton and another cotton ball plugging the opening of the test tube.
This test tube setup will be the home of your colony for the next few months or even up
to over a year, depending on how fast your colony grows.
We’ve got extra spacious test tubes that don’t roll, specifically made for ant keeping
at our shop if you need them, but if it’s a dire emergency, you can also get water picks
from your local florist.
Only keep one queen per test tube, because though there are ant species that do tolerate
multiple queens in a colony, setting up the conditions in a captive setup which allows
for multi-queen colonies to happen is difficult, and chances are your queens will cooperatively
raise their colony together for the first little while, but once the workers arrive,
they’ll kill each other.
You only need one egg-laying queen to get started.
So once your queen is in this test tube setup, the key now is to not disturb her as much
as possible for the next few weeks.
She needs to feel secure, and preferably kept in the dark.
I like to keep my incubating queen ants under some towels in a closet.
It’s the hardest thing to not check up on her every 10 minutes, believe me, I know,
but if you must, I would say checking up on her every 3-4 days is the maximum for now.
Over stressing the queen at this stage could lead to her eating her brood, which you don’t
want.
Now a lot of people ask, “How long would it be before the queen lays eggs?” and “When
will my first workers arrive?”
The answer to this depends on species and the temperature at which you keep the queen.
If the test tube is kept in a warm room or garage, the time to egg-laying and adult workers
arriving is shorter.
If kept in an air conditioned room, the time is longer.
Queen ants can start laying immediately or may start laying eggs within the week.
Now during this period you don’t need to feed the queen at all as she will be subsisting
off muscle stores in her back wing muscles and also barfing up a self-made nutritious
soup for her young, until they are full grown adult worker ants.
It may take anywhere between 2-8 weeks for ants to go from egg to worker, so you really
need to be patient.
Keep them quiet, in the dark, and away from any vibrations.
So once you have a queen and a small family of workers, then what?
When do you actually get to feed them?
As a rule, I usually wait 7-10 days after the first worker arrives before offering a
colony food.
A good indicator of whether or not the starting colony is ready to have their first meal is
if the ants start to show signs of pulling at the cotton.
It means they’re trying to dig out of their founding chamber to look for the colony’s
first meal.
So as a first meal, you can try feeding a tiny drop of sugar water administered by a
toothpick, and then later a cricket leg or crushed insect.
I don’t recommend you give them too large of a food item at this stage as the pioneering
workers are a bit delicate and you also risk a mold outbreak in your test tube.
Some freshly killed small insect or insect body part is the best option at this point
after sugar water.
So now that we’re on this topic let’s talk about ANT DIET!
Ants need two food types: They need carbs or sugars like sugar water, fruits, nectar,
seeds, or honey, and they need a protein food source, usually feeder insects like crickets,
mealworms, superworms, or feeder roaches.
I don’t recommend feeding insects caught outside as they can contain pesticides which
would kill your ants.
I once lost a whole colony by feeding a few flies caught outside.
If live feeder insects freak you out, you can try cooked meats and fish, dog food, or
fish flakes, but at some point, ants really flourish when they have feeder insects to
eat.
So keep this in mind and experiment with a broad array of different foods.
The colony also needs fresh water at all times, which in the beginning can be drunk from the
cotton holding the water back in their test tube setup.
Never use sugar water in your colony’s test tube setup as the colony still needs fresh
water, plus the ants will inevitably defecate in your founding test tube setup and if mixed
with sugar water this could lead to a disastrous bacterial or mold outbreak.
So you have your colony in a test tube with many workers, but the water in your test tube
is running out or it gets moldy.
What do you do then?
Well, you can attach a second test tube setup using tape, allowing air to enter by untaping
every day, or you can fixate a fresh test tube nearby, with a connecting chamber like
this ac Test Tube Portal.
The ants will simply move the colony, queen, brood, and all to the fresh test tube setup
when they are ready.
Just trust the ants will know when it’s best to move.
Don’t force a move as this can injure the queen and/or brood.
You can also start to offer the colony’s food in this chamber.
You’ll see the ants will start treating the test tube like their nest and the chamber
like an outdoor feeding area and garbage site.
So once the colony is bigger, say at 50-100 workers strong, or even more if possible (the
bigger the better) this is the best time to finally introduce your colony to their first
proper ant farm.
I waited until the Phoenix Empire, the fire ant colony on this channel was a couple hundred
workers strong before I finally introduced them to their first official ant farm.
The danger with introducing your colony to an ant farm or large space too early is they
might dry out, might not have enough worker power to properly thermoregulate or hydroregulate
the babies, or get too spaced out in too large a space which means less efficiency for the
colony as a unit.
One of the biggest mistakes ant keepers make is moving their ant colony into an ant farm
too early.
Now let’s talk about housing!
Let’s talk Ant Farms!
One of the most fun things is getting your ant colony all setup in their first ant farm!
First off, let me issue a warning that gelfarms are bad!
Ant keepers know how bad gelfarms are for ant colonies.
They eventually break out in mold, don’t contain proper nourishment for an ant colony,
and are just all around bad for ants.
If you have your ants in a gelfarm right now just simply replace the gel with digging medium
and allow your ants to dig.
There are many types of great ant farms, but basically they fall into three categories:
Digging Ant Farms, like this ac Ant Tower, where the ants are given the liberty to dig
tunnels and create chambers in a digging medium.
Non-digging ant farms, like this ac Hybrid Nest where the tunnels and chambers are made
for them, or terrariums where you basically create a planted habitat and allow the ants
to dig in the soil.
You can also have hybrids of these three types.
If your ant farm doesn’t have a feeding area, like this ac Hybrid Nest, you will need
to connect the ant farm using tubes to a feeding area, called an outworld where you will place
all the ants’ food.
The ants will leave their nest to collect the food from their outworld, and dump all
their garbage for you to clean up in their outworld.
Each type of ant housing has its pros and cons, and it basically is up to the ant keeper
which housing he/she prefers, as they each offer varying degrees of visibility, liberty
for the ants’ natural behaviours to be displayed, and offer different aesthetics.
A good ant farm, though is one that allows for a moisture gradient, meaning an area that
is a bit more moist and an area that is a bit more dry, has at least minimal ventilation,
and is escape proof.
Speaking of which, now to address how to contain the ants.
Ant keepers use ant barriers to keep their ants in their setups, particularly in terrariums
and outworlds with an open top.
You can use a layer of petroleum jelly, baby powder mixed with rubbing alcohol which dries
and becomes super slippery for ants, or this stuff called PTFE or fluon.
I prefer to use baby powder mixed with rubbing alcohol, which I smother on the bottom of
ac Outworld lips or can be painted along the top of terrariums.
And finally, let's talk maintenance: ants are considered super low maintenance in the
beginning when they’re in a test tube, limited to simply feeding and cleaning garbage up
once or twice a week.
But once they get into the thousands, duties start to pick up.
Continue to offer the colony as much food as they will eat without tonnes of it laying
around in their ant farm or outworld to keep mold outbreaks at bay.
A few feeder insects a week is good for a small colony, along with freshwater and sugar
water offered in a test tube 24-7.
If you keep your colony warmer than room temperature, they’ll grow much faster.
Clean up their garbage once a week by spot cleaning, water their ant farm periodically
if it dries out, and expand your setup as the colony gets bigger.
If you want to slow down your ant colony’s growth rate and don’t want them to reach
into the millions, simply lower the temperature they’re kept at and limit how much food
you give them.
I regulate temperature by adjusting the thermostat of the room they're kept it, or you can use
heating cables to heat up sections of their nest.
Don't place the ant farm in direct sunlight as you will cook the ants.
Just a note that if you live in an area that has winter, the ants will enter a dormant
state by late Fall, at which point you can simply keep them in a cold place of your home.
You don’t need to feed them, but you will need to make sure they have water at all times,
and just enjoy the ant keeping break until Spring when they start to wake up again.
I actually love that with ant keeping in a temperate climate, you can take a yearly break
from the ants, which keeps the hobby fresh year after year.
Some say hibernating your ants prolongs the queen’s life
so it’s best to keep your colony cold in the winter.
By the way, your colony could live as long as 30 yrs depending on the species!
If you have black crazy ants like our Dark Knights, they live and breed healthily forever
within an enclosed ant farm!
Overall, ants are super rewarding pets, and I am positive if you give them a try, they’ll
surely offer you, many hours of discovery, wonder, and satisfaction.
I hope this tutorial helped answer all of your questions, but if you still have questions,
feel free to watch more ant tutorials on this channel.
Ants have taught me some very valuable lessons in life, including the importance of patience,
responsibility, and persistence.
Keeping ants, as you may have seen on this channel, can shed a lot of amazing insight
not only on the world of biology, but also on our own world, on ourselves.
If you snoop around and watch a few more videos on this channel, you’ll see just how mind-blowing
and interesting the secret world of ants really is, but I won’t spoil it for you: try it
for yourselves!
Once you get your first ant colony going, thriving, and operating in your first epic
ant farm, you’ll understand why millions of people have fallen in love with the hobby
and these amazing little creatures we call ants.
Thank you for watching and best of luck on your ant keeping experience!
It’s ant love forever!
AC Family, did you enjoy today's tutorial episode?
Hope this video inspires more of you to join me in this amazing educational hobby, and
if so and/or if you haven’t yet, do SMASH that SUBSCRIBE button and BELL ICON now, and
hit ALL so you get notified at every upload, because I think notifications are broken again.
Also don’t forget to hit the LIKE button every single time including now.
It would really mean a lot to me, guys.
Thank you!
AC Inner Colony, I have left a hidden cookie for you here, if you would like to see some
updated footage of the Phoenix Empire, my current fire ant colony, which is the biggest
ant colony I own today.
Go check them out!
And guys, did you know that it’s anting season in the Northern Hemisphere, and you
don’t even need to leave your home to start an ant colony?!
You can catch pregnant queen ants from the safety of your own backyard, balcony, or open
window starting this month!
Be sure to visit AntsCanada.com for all your ant keeping and collecting gear shipped to
you in a special package from our ant-loving facility in the USA, so you can get the most
out of your ant keeping experience.
We ship worldwide and also offer full email support if you need our help!
We also have a helpful forum and ant colony trading marketplace on the site.
Visit AntsCanada.com today.
And now it’s time for the AC Question of the Week.
Last week, we asked:
What makes this future fire ant home so special among all other terrariums we’ve
ever built before on this channel?
Congratulations to Lee Ming who answered:
The whole AC Family is building it together poll by-poll.
Congratulations Lee Ming, you just won a free Ultimate Ant Keeping handbook from our shop!
In this week’s AC Question of the Week we ask:
What is a nuptial flight?
Leave your answer in the comments section and you could win a free ac Ant Tower Small
Deluxe Kit + Ultimate Ant Keeping Handbook E-book from our shop!
Hope you could subscribe to the channel as we upload every Saturday at 8AM EST.
Please remember to LIKE, COMMENT, SHARE, and SUBSCRIBE if you enjoyed this video, to help
us keep making more.
It’s ant love forever!