109 replies to this topic

[Barristan]

I visited THA website and read everything on the page.

 

And I find it quite honest and professional how he offers the ants.

He explains what "advanced" colonies are and that he added pupae of other colonies so that the process of colony founding is easier. But you also have the option to not buy boosted colonies so you can be sure that all the brood is from the queen you bought.

 

If you are open about boosting and explain your customers what it is I see no problem with it.

 

The only problem I have with boosted colonies is if shops don't tell the customers that the colony was boosted, so they think for example they bought a 2 year old colony with 80 workers but in fact the queen was collected this year and the shop added 80 pupae so he can make more profit.

 

But THA is open and transparent about what he does and what the customer buys and he is also right that it will increase the chances of successfully founding. 

I once had a discussion with a collector from Poland from where I bought several Manica rubida queens and he told me that without boosting the chances are very low that the queens will make it, so he was also open about his boosting. And all 3 queens I bought founded successfully...

The problem with dishonest traders is a lot bigger in Europe unfortunately. Some want to make quick money and sell infertile queens with workers which aren't their own. And maybe it is easy to spot boosted colonies if you see major-workers where there should only be nanitics but if someone sells you a 1-3 year old colony, how do you see if the workers are actually  from the queen and weren't just added via pupae of foreign colonies? And beginners will often think that their own "flawed" keeping conditions caused the queen to not produce new workers than more experienced ant keepers.

Edited by Barristan, August 20 2019 - 12:24 PM.

[rbarreto]

Maybe semi-claustral queens like Pogonomyrmex and Manica might be able to benefit from workers gathering food for them.

[Canadant]

Thanks drtrmiller! Interesting post. I recently made a post about the success rate and the odds of surviving and thriving as an ant/queen. It can't be that high compared to the staggering numbers involved in nuptial flights. Plus after nups you may have even riskier behavior like parasitic queens and slave raiders. I can't imagine the jedi mind tricks you'd have to pull off to sneak in undercover and kill the queen and not cause holy hell! Amazing.

Also, one of my tetramorium queens has laid substantially less eggs than the other. Same everything in my control. So, yeah, different queens gets different results.

Thanks again!

[Serafine]

Boosting with pupae is a good way to increase a queen's chance of founding successfully as even a single worker makes an enormous difference in a colony's chances for survival. I am VERY sure that larger sellers like Uncle Milton will definitely adopt this practice just to reduce the amount of failing queens. And do I really have to remind you on the study about the genetic composition of Pogonomyrmex colonies which revealed that a good chunk of every wild colony's workers aren't actually their own but workers from other colonies that got lost and begged for acceptiance in another colony? Apparently Pogonomyrmex are particularly accepting when it comes to workers from other colonies.

 

The way I have experienced THA so far is that he's someone who really wants to bring the hobby forward, is very openly and pretty actively talking with actual and potential costumers and generally listens to critiques people brought forward. I'm fairly sure what he does is the best strategy to raise successful ant colonies.

 

And on a note, Formiculture complaining about THA's founding practices (which actually have been tested and are likely the best way of ensuring a queen's survival) is not just ludicrous, it's outright hypocritcal as it took Formiculture TWO YEARS to not ban Joseph Kim EVEN AFTER HE WAS CONFIRMED A SCAMMER AND ILLEGAL SELLER OF EXOTIC ANTS. Yes, he never got banned. He just left for greener (and even less regulated) pastures at some point after having a great learning experience on how to illegally sell ants on Formiculture and continued to damage the antkeeping hobby until he fiinally got blown out of the water by the USDA.

Edited by Serafine, August 20 2019 - 2:33 PM.

[Mercutia]

And on a note, Formiculture complaining about THA's founding practices (which actually have been tested and are likely the best way of ensuring a queen's survival) is not just ludicrous, it's outright hypocritcal as it took Formiculture TWO YEARS to not ban Joseph Kim EVEN AFTER HE WAS CONFIRMED A SCAMMER AND ILLEGAL SELLER OF EXOTIC ANTS. Yes, he never got banned. He just left for greener (and even less regulated) pastures at some point after having a great learning experience on how to illegally sell ants on Formiculture and continued to damage the antkeeping hobby until he fiinally got blown out of the water by the USDA.

Firstly, you are speaking about Formiculture as a whole entity. This is a collective community of people with all sorts of opinions. Plenty of those opinions differ as you can see on this thread there are people who don't disagree with these practices and find them perfectly agreeable so long as full disclosure is made.

Secondly, THA is not banned from Formiculture so really it's not ludicrous or hypocritical. He has as much right to show up on here and address any of these issues himself.

[Rin]

This is the first species to be offered on a wide bases. I hope more species are added. Most industries have an association of some sort that sets industry standards, ethics, and offer a type of quality control. Such as American Diary Farmers and more. I don't know if America has an organization of this type. It might would be a useful tool.No one wants the hobby to descend into chaos. Also my personal opinion is yes, this way is a bit of a gamble particularly for those new to Pogonomyrmex Occidentalis.

[TennesseeAnts]

Just ordered a queen from Derpy.

[drtrmiller]

...are you all so thankless and ungrateful for the growth "a vendor" has brought to the community that it's worth it to not even give him benefit of the doubt?
 
...FSTP, you of all people being ungrateful for THA is laughable. And byFormica jumping in the dog pile is a level of unprofessionalism I don't expect from you at all.
 
...You don't have to pull other people down to raise yourself up. I'm disappointed that none of you can see the bigger picture, or will even take the time to consider that what
 
...This isn't civil discourse, these are just a thiny veiled pot shots. It's just more crabs in a meaningless bucket trying to pull eachother down, a petty showcase of how not to change things for the better. An exercise in meaningless bridge burning.
 
...I think you're all better than this and this thread is an embarassment. Do better.

 
@Soul
 
I don't have a dog in this fight.  I've joked around about artificially inseminating queens, but that was all that was—joking around.  Selling insects as livestock is a high risk, high reward business.  I don't want to put my name on a product whose quality I can't control.
 
If I ever reversed that decision, I would be sure to offer them on Amazon, so as to combine transparent product reviews, so customers would know what to expect—and something you will never get from a first-party online store like the one we're discussing—with A+ service customers have come to expect when shopping on Amazon, including 30-day returns.
 
Just take a look at the reviews for the #1 supplier of harvester ant workers for ant farms in the US on Amazon:
 
https://www.amazon.c.../dp/B01N6AU8P1/
 
They have sold literally tens of thousands of customer orders over the years.  Wouldn't you think if anyone knew how to sell ants and create good customer experiences, it would be those guys?  And yet, 1 in 3 have had a negative customer experience.
 
I'm old enough to remember all the times when you were intensely critical of one of my products, and offered many arguments for why it was overpriced—even comparing it to the price of wine!  And yet, here you are defending an individual's exorbitant prices for ants which were picked up off the ground, whose quality and fitness is undetermined, by virtue of the fact that none of the queens has even lived long enough to produce her own genetic daughter workers!  I'll take the reviews of my "overpriced" product to any given livestock reviews any day of the week.

The principal issue I raised was that these are relatively common ants, and that the inflated prices and detail page imply to the regular person that each queen is equal in her capacity to found a durable colony under the care of a completely inexperienced hobbyist.  You also seem to be making the case that these queens are higher in quality because of the reputation of the vendor offering them.  Obviously neither of these is true.  These are all unproven queens that haven't done anything except be picked off the ground by the thousands each year by people all over the Southwest US, and no amount of vendor screening can control for "dud" queens who will simply die or fail to thrive in short order.  As the vendor has said publicly:
 

"There is no 30 day guarantee to shipped ants due to the fact the customer cannot return them as is."

 
So if someone buys two or more of these premium-priced, "boosted" queens, and treats all of them equally, is this vendor going to eschew responsibility if the buyer complains that one or more died or failed to thrive, while one or more others were successful, even within 30 days?
 

Also, one of my tetramorium queens has laid substantially less eggs than the other. Same everything in my control. So, yeah, different queens gets different results.

 
To be clear, I don't agree with the term "scammer" being used to sell a product that is properly described.  But the fact of the matter is that one of the biggest vendors in the US is selling these ants at exorbitant prices all because they are first well-respected vendor to market.  And that, in my view, is predatory behavior.
 
No one in Europe can sell a Messor barbarus queen with eggs for 1/10^th the price I've seen being offered for these queens.  And in a year or three, when prices for P. occidentalis bottom out, we will all remember who defended these prices and practices.  I don't have a time machine, but I expect your extremely emotionally driven post, filled to the brim with psychological deflection, will not age well.
 
That said, this thread will probably still be here at that time.  So I am open to revisiting the matter with a different perspective if these overpriced queens don't turn out to be an absolute dumpster fire for said company, and none of my predictions come to pass.  How about you?

Edited by drtrmiller, August 20 2019 - 4:58 PM.

[Kaelwizard]

I know they are overpriced but I still bought a boosted colony. On his website he said that the boosted colonies should have a almost 100% success rate so we will see how that goes.

[ponerinecat]

I know they are overpriced but I still bought a boosted colony. On his website he said that the boosted colonies should have a almost 100% success rate so we will see how that goes.

That, my friend, is a false figure. Queens, new queens more so, and Pogonomyrmex even more so, have a reputation of deciding that it's time to stop existing. Without warning, their body spontaneously combusts. Infertility is another huge factor. Tell us how it goes, I'm genuinely curious as to how this whole business turns out.

[ponerinecat]

This certainly escalated quickly. Hows abouts we just sit back, watch what happens, buy if we want to, and see this thing fail spectacularly or succeed tremendously. Each to his/her own.

[Canadian anter]

I know they are overpriced but I still bought a boosted colony. On his website he said that the boosted colonies should have a almost 100% success rate so we will see how that goes.

That, my friend, is a false figure. Queens, new queens more so, and Pogonomyrmex even more so, have a reputation of deciding that it's time to stop existing. Without warning, their body spontaneously combusts. Infertility is another huge factor. Tell us how it goes, I'm genuinely curious as to how this whole business turns out.

From what I hear (though not in my experience) only 60-70% of Pogonomyrmex queens survive to worker stage

[ponerinecat]

 

 

I know they are overpriced but I still bought a boosted colony. On his website he said that the boosted colonies should have a almost 100% success rate so we will see how that goes.

That, my friend, is a false figure. Queens, new queens more so, and Pogonomyrmex even more so, have a reputation of deciding that it's time to stop existing. Without warning, their body spontaneously combusts. Infertility is another huge factor. Tell us how it goes, I'm genuinely curious as to how this whole business turns out.

From what I hear (though not in my experience) only 60-70% of Pogonomyrmex queens survive to worker stage

 

That's actually a pretty high figure.

[drtrmiller]

 

 

I know they are overpriced but I still bought a boosted colony. On his website he said that the boosted colonies should have a almost 100% success rate so we will see how that goes.

That, my friend, is a false figure. Queens, new queens more so, and Pogonomyrmex even more so, have a reputation of deciding that it's time to stop existing. Without warning, their body spontaneously combusts. Infertility is another huge factor. Tell us how it goes, I'm genuinely curious as to how this whole business turns out.

From what I hear (though not in my experience) only 60-70% of Pogonomyrmex queens survive to worker stage

 

 

But also, some die for inexplicable reasons while the colony is still in the incipient stage; maybe a few weeks after the first nanitic workers eclose, or a couple months.  These queens die even though the colony seems perfectly healthy.  And I would speculate that has to do with the fitness of the queen at a genetic level.

It is for those and other reasons that selling an unproven, semi-claustral queen of an extremely common and widespread species, for the prices discussed, and claiming a 100% success rate, is predatory, in my view.

 

Why make the claim of an "almost 100% success rate," as opposed to simply saying "more successful than X...because Y?"

Edited by drtrmiller, August 20 2019 - 6:16 PM.

[ponerinecat]

 

 

 

I know they are overpriced but I still bought a boosted colony. On his website he said that the boosted colonies should have a almost 100% success rate so we will see how that goes.

That, my friend, is a false figure. Queens, new queens more so, and Pogonomyrmex even more so, have a reputation of deciding that it's time to stop existing. Without warning, their body spontaneously combusts. Infertility is another huge factor. Tell us how it goes, I'm genuinely curious as to how this whole business turns out.

From what I hear (though not in my experience) only 60-70% of Pogonomyrmex queens survive to worker stage

 

 

But also, some die for inexplicable reasons while the colony is still in the incipient stage; maybe a few weeks after the first nanitic workers eclose, or a couple months.  These queens die even though the colony seems perfectly healthy.  And I would speculate that has to do with the fitness of the queen at a genetic level.

It is for those and other reasons that selling an unproven, semi-claustral queen of an extremely common and widespread species, for the prices discussed, and claiming a 100% success rate, is predatory, in my view.

 

Perhaps, and that figure is certainly exaggerated, but many marketing companies do this, so nothing new. We'll just have to see who tests their luck.

[dspdrew]

Having spoken to "a vendor" (cute, guys) ...

 

We actually label member accounts "vendor" here if they want to have their own subforum for their store. Nothing wrong with being a vendor.

 

 

... I don't see you guys banning actual, self confessed scammers when I brought it to your attention.

 

So if the mods don't care about scammers ...

 

We don't arbitrarily ban anybody here with the exception of an obvious spam bot (most are actually banned automatically by the hundreds daily), or if they attack or threaten the website. We simply "warn" members when they break a rule. The forum software has been configured to ban based on the number and frequency of warnings. I feel that is the fairest way to run a forum. By the way, no accounts associated with THA have ever been banned here.

[soulsynapse]

 

Having spoken to "a vendor" (cute, guys) ...

 

We actually label member accounts "vendor" here if they want to have their own subforum for their store. Nothing wrong with being a vendor.

 

 

... I don't see you guys banning actual, self confessed scammers when I brought it to your attention.

 

So if the mods don't care about scammers ...

 

We don't arbitrarily ban anybody here with the exception of an obvious spam bot (most are actually banned automatically by the hundreds daily), or if they attack or threaten the website. We simply "warn" members when they break a rule. The forum software has been configured to ban based on the number and frequency of warnings. I feel that is the fairest way to run a forum. By the way, no accounts associated with THA have ever been banned here.

 

 

That wasn't what I was getting at with the quote, I was alluding to people saying "a vendor" as if anybody doesn't know who we're talking about. I wasn't asking for arbitrary bans either, but when I brought it up with the staff they were unconcerned then, but are immensely concerned over something that isn't even a problem. Regarding THA bans, that was mercutia misreading something, I think, wasn't said or implied anywhere.

Edited by soulsynapse, August 20 2019 - 8:45 PM.

[Silq]

I know they are overpriced but I still bought a boosted colony. On his website he said that the boosted colonies should have a almost 100% success rate so we will see how that goes.

Nothing against you at all Kaelwizard. This is the mentality that the people on this forum are arguing. It is your money and as a hobbyist, you should be making informed decisions but if you were misled by the "almost 100% success rate" statement then that is proving the arguments of those who are arguing against THA being predatory and/or misleading.

 

I have such mixed feelings towards this. As a person who has a background in business with the focus in marketing, I can understand the decisions THA makes but as a new hobbyist, I see it as a bit unfair. He does present a lot of good information and even cites a research paper but there is one thing that should be pointed out which is success rate versus increased colony growth rate. If I am understanding the cited paper, it concludes brood boosting increases colony growth rate and shortens production time. I can't copy the article but last few sentences: https://www.research...dmZClD0eKdbxjPM

 

I believe this is correlation and not causation but I might totally be misunderstanding it so someone concur or clarify it please.

 

There are things we must take into consideration;

• What is good for the queen? If brood boosting is being argued heavily beneficial for the colony/queen then brood boosting pricing shouldn't be a major barrier. It is 50% of the price... Brood boosting does bring added value and supposedly there is a short supply so I understand this is a supply and demand issue and that the price is a business decision but if this was not a business decision, would brood boosting be offered at a much lower price until supplies run out? Some companies will operate this way and other won't and this is where a great divide has started.
• What is good for the hobby? Sustainability, accessibility, more informed people. I think of San Diego Comic-con where Comic-Con had the opportunity to choose higher ticket prices and a larger venue for greater ROI because SD Convention Center albeit good, is not the best but they decided to stay. You don't want to limit the hobby to people who have the disposable income to drop $90 on each queen.
• What is good for the customer? Fair pricing, low barriers. In the US, the barriers are high and the pricing just isn't fair to the majority of people.
• What is good for the business? Sustainability while maximizing ROI. I can't give a great econ lesson but those who know elastic vs inelastic demand, this is an elastic demand. Most of us can agree, price is way too high so the amount of buyers will drop to those who can afford to spend $90. Since I live in a high cost of living area, I work in an industry where a lot of people are making $100k+/yr and some of us won't worry too much about anything under $100 but for the majority of us, we will look twice and look for a cheaper route. If the price was advertised at $60, we might still be a bit concerned with the price but still be prone to buying with no complaining. Money is relative especially with inflation but remember 10 years ago, car payments were $300-$500 and now they still are the same  payments except we are financing at 72-84 month terms instead of the 48-60 month terms in the past. I feel like THA and many hobbyists knew the price of the Pogonomyrmex were going to be at its highest right now but not everyone took advantage of that knowledge to take advantage of others.

I may have gone on a rant and it is pretty late.

edit: formatting - bolded stuff

edit2: Oh yeah, as for business, ants are a compliment to what THA's products or vice versa. Tennis to tennis balls, beers to free peanuts, you get my point. If ant products and supplies are your main business, selling ants at a lower margin actually would be more beneficial to you as you would get more new people to purchase your products so you would have a larger share of the market. If you are trying to have a high profit margin on everything, you will decrease your market share as other competitors enter the market unless you actively buy them out. 

Edited by Silq, August 20 2019 - 11:05 PM.

[drtrmiller]

Is that the article he cited?  Something on weaver ants, whose queens are claustral and live a lifestyle completely different from all other ants?

 

Full text here:

http://periodicos.ue...le/view/183/337

[Barristan]

The main problem is the "almost 100% chance". If he has no data to back up this claim he should remove it and just write: "It will increase the chance of successfully founding".

 

I mean just imagine Terry would say: "If you feed your ants with sunburst ant nectar, they'll live almost 100% longer". People would be rightfully outraged because he couldn't back up this claim with data.

 

I'm quite new to ant selling business I only recently started a shop, but I will tell you what I have to guarantee if someone buys an ant colony from me.

 

By law every end customer has a 2 year warranty that the item (in German law animals are treated as items in sale of goods law) is free of faults. Normally if the customer notices any fault like queen doesn't lay eggs, or the queen dies etc. he would have to proof that this defect was caused by something that was already there when the customer received the ants. So it is quite hard to proof that.

However within the first 6 months after buying not the customer has to proof that it was my fault but I have to proof that it was the customers fault. So basically if the queen dies within the first 6 months I can't do much if it wasn't obviously hit by something or you see other signs of mistreatment. I would have to replace the queen or pay the money back if I don't have a replacement.

 

And even with that quite hard law for businesses people still can make money selling ants.

 

Therefore I think THA should give some kind of warranty maybe 1 or 2 month that if the queen dies during that period or doesn't lay any new eggs or brood doesn't develop to workers he will send a replacement or give the money back.

Because if a queen is not fertile it doesn't mean she always will produce males, sometimes she just doesn't lay eggs, or she eats her own eggs so there won't be any males at all...

 

PS: THA is not the most expensive seller: https://www.antsylva...ex-occidentalis

Edited by Barristan, August 21 2019 - 1:48 AM.