The one egg in the upper right corner has been the biggest and quickest growing. Is this normal? 1 queen 4 ants

First time keeping an ant which we randomly found and it hatched it's first worker.

There is a silky screen across the test tube. Is that normal?

They love to bring their children to the surface for heat, but I'm worried I could overheat them by putting it around their nest. What should I do?

Can anyone guess the size of the colony here, and make some suggestions for a newbie jumping in with this situation? My guess is 50-100 ants. I'm assuming they're Camponotus but I don't know much more than that. Should I leave them in the Sycamore branch? I have an AntShack Natural Formicarium (medium size) but I don't think that's going to help me here.

Late last fall I was cleaning fallen Sycamore branches from the roof of the garage, when I noticed one branch had a swarm of ant burst out of it when I tossed it down to the ground. I have long wanted a colony of ants, so I grabbed a saw and started cutting it to fit a 10-gallon aquarium. Unfortunately, during the second cut, I realized I had cut into their nest and they came streaming out of that spot also. I finally was able to cut through a little farther down, and I had a 20-gallon aquarium available also, so I hurried up and smeared petroleum jelly around the top rim and put the branch in there.

I didn't have any good place indoors for diapause, so I left the aquarium out in the garage over the winter, and I cut a plywood lid to keep out any predators, but not seal the air off entirely. This spring, I went out and was happy to find a few scouts, so I gave them some sugar water and mealworm pupae (which I had on hand). Yesterday was a moderate temperature and overnight last night was a freeze, so it seemed like a good time to bring them inside. Today, they are quite active. I got some crickets from the pet store and I froze them. I pulled out 10 of them to thaw and put them into the aquarium.

I'll probably need to use the garage again for diapause next winter. I do see probably 20 of them with wings. I am worried that they are ready for a mating flight because it was quite warm overnight all of a sudden when I brought them in.

My camponotus nicobarensis and messor barbarus queens have arrived! I can show the messor barbarus because i dont want to disturb her too much as she is still in founding but i fell in love with both species, my nicobarensis colony came with ten workers and i fed them and they were so hungry. Ive never kept a messor or camponotus species before so im suepr excited to keep these!

This is my Messor Barbarous Colony.

This new set up is a seamless acrylic tank off temu (£12). I poured in some plaster of paris, once set I removed the block and carved tunnels round the edge with a rotary grinder. I then use a very strong coffee solution to paint it. Multiple dark coats between the tunnels, a single light coat in the tunnel.

Then dropped the block back Into the acrylic tank, added sand, rocks and dead wood.

What do yous think?

Moving in day video. https://imgur.com/a/messor-barbarous-new-setup-moving-day-m5yCvrr

I’ve had this Camponotus CA02 colony for about 1 and a half months and they recently hatechef thier third worker but one of my workers just died out of the blue, I received them with 2 workers and 4 eggs and now I have 2 pupae 3 larva and a good amount of eggs but I’m down one worker. They have a clean source of water a perfect amount of heat and I feed them every 3 days so is this just old age or is something wrong?

Her brood is a bright orange color. Has a notable black triangle on her lower thorax.

Just sharing some species I've found around my new house, there are more species and I'll share them with you when I get some pics.

These are 2 different species, at least I believe so. The one in my hand looks like a soldier. The ones on the wall the real color is yellow and in the last picture the arrow points to the nest entrance, they are like 1mm long!

Hi! This is my new formicarium for Messor Structor. My previous one had much too little outworld, I couldn't give them a juicy shrimp without chasing 5 of them around the room.

I've designed it it Fusion 360, printed using Bambulab A1 mini, ordered some custom shaped plexiglass. It is modular, so expanding it should be pretty easy in the future.

I don't know how to get rid of the static charge that causes all the dust to stick to the plexiglass.

Waiting for them to move in!!!

Is it a Camponotus japonicus?

Hi everyone! I’m new and have so many questions. My lasius niger colony is in a nest that is too big for them (although they are now staying in 2 chambers instead of one so hopefully that’s a good sign?). I am trying to move them into a test tube because of the small colony size and also there is now mould growing in the nest but they do not want to move. I tried keeping a lamp on their current nest for a few days and the test tube dark but they didn’t really seem to care. Also, they seem to have almost completely blocked the entrance from the outer world to the nest. Is this normal? I appreciate any insight or advice!

I gave cricket legs to my Lasius Niger colony and they dragged them into their nest (currently the test tube). Now the legs started growing mold and I'm starting to worry. They are inside of a formicarium I got from AntCube so they have the option to move. The test tube is covered by aluminum foil so the queen isn't stressed all the time. I also wanted to make moving more attractive by getting a heat mat and attaching it to the side of the nest part, but it hasn't arrived yet

I flipped a rock and found a huge colony of thousands of these yellow goldish ants. There where about 4-8 queens so there polygynous, also they are small. I live in California up on the mountains.

Ive been eyeing out this small complete set and the colony that will occupy this is going to be my pheidole rhea colony. Ive been deciding on nests and i wanted to know if this is good enough for them. The pheidole rhea has a range of 40-80 workers.

Hello fellow ant-people,

After my first self-caught queen did not get over the stage of laying eggs and then unfortunately dying, I managed to catch another queen.

She is black and quite big. She dropped her wings the moment she landed in my room, and after putting her in a little formicarium she laid eggs the next day.

I tried to look up the most prevalent ants in the area where I am (South East Asia), but no species seems to be a match. Can you please help identify?

I am worried about her because I had to make alot of adjustments and move her around ALOT. She doesn't seem very stressed and I've only had her for around 6 days. I don't think she should have layed eggs by now but I can't help but keep taking her tune to check on her. Is this okay?

The dimensions in inches 4.5" x 0.56

Hi! Anybody in Auckland have either Blue pony queen or Dracula queen that they are able to sell?? Cheers

I hope this is allowed, if not feel free to delete it. This is the setup I got with a small species of ant in mind, but am now going to keep carpenter ants. It was used for a few weeks (not all of it, just a few of the sections) and is in great shape. Looking to sell for around $250 (including shipping) and will ship within the US. Feel free to ask any questions or to ask for more pictures.

I’m in utah and wanting to start keeping ants. How do I go about finding a queen and what’s the best course of action from there?

Hello fellow ant-people,

After my first self-caught queen did not get over the stage of laying eggs and then unfortunately dying, I managed to catch another queen.

She is black and quite big. She dropped her wings the moment she landed in my room, and after putting her in a little formicarium she laid eggs the next day.

I tried to look up the most prevalent ants in the area where I am (South East Asia), but no species seems to be a match. Can you please help identify?