I Raised My First Ant Colony for 9 Months

Comments · 62

• AN

  @AntasticTom · 3 months ago · pinned

  After 9 months with this colony, I'm even more convinced Lasius niger is one of the best beginner species. Have you kept them before? What was your experience, or what species started your ant keeping journey?

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• TH

  @thomasraney9848 · 1 month ago

  When you get more colonies over the years to come you appreciate diapause ad a welcome break from the hobby and a chance to come up with new ideas and plans for the future.

  1

• ED

  @eddhigham · 13 hours ago

  I'd love to start keeping ants and having my own colony, but the wife would go mad if she opened the fridge and found ants in there. 😂

• TH

  @thpandagamer · 3 months ago (edited)

  Anyone else thought the thumbnail showed an ant pizza <br>Maybe squint or look from the corner of your eye

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• JS

  @jsten69 · 10 days ago

  Tom, another great video 😊

• DE

  @DesdemonaRoseTH · 3 months ago

  I am in the US, it looks like we have lasius neoniger here. I don&apos;t know if they&apos;re the most similar Lasius species or not. There&apos;s a couple of other options as well. I like your name, I mulled over my colony names for a while. I ended up naming the queen of my first colony, Pogo occidentalis, The Queen of Hearts (from Alice... Off with their heads!). She had a lot of feelings every time I fed them or tried to clean their trash. She&apos;s calmed down a bit now, which is good to see.

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• LG

  @LGNMc · 2 months ago

  Love the name lol. I hope they last you for years to come.

• FI

  @Finley-xb1ht · 3 months ago

  To avoid the water leak thing, I have two fridges, one is 13c and the other 8c, they hibernate in the 8c and go into the 13c one a day before being taken out.

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• CR

  @Crimson-89-b7l · 3 months ago

  we just ordered the supplies needed for my soon to arrive ants, it is a small colony of 1-5 workers!

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• FI

  @Fishykingoffish · 3 months ago

  I got a colony of 30 pogonomyrmex occidentalis and put them in a mini hearth formicaruim. It is enough and it’s small and I created a humidity and head gradient already!

  2

• JU

  @justeRayd · 1 month ago

  I catched my first (16) queens a week ago, already have few eggs ! I can’t wait to see the progress

• LA

  @lauraclarke7197 · 1 month ago

  Great video, and nice to see one by a northerner! I&apos;ve been wanting to start for 2 years by catching my own queen but have always been too disorganised to time it right and look for any. Last Sunday I stepped out of my front door to go to a pub quiz and I found one right at my feet on my front path! I told my bf to hold on and went to grab a jar to catch her 😂 I moved her to a test tube when we got home and I just checked on her today. She has a small brood of about 7/8 eggs! I&apos;m so excited. I hope my queen is successful as I only have the one. This video was really useful, thank you Tom 🐜👑🤞