Hi All,
I've been interested in ants since i was kid growing up near Tacoma, Washington and when I moved to the East Coast as an adult, got married and had kids the interest had to be sidelined. 25+ years later and now that my kids are older (16 and 10) I decided to research on how to keep an ant farm/colony. Wow I did not realize how complex and fun it is today. I always thought you just threw them in a a jar and that's it. 
Unfortunately I did not get to get the species I am interested in or keeping because I started late in the year. However at the cottage we own and travel frequently from Spring to Fall, my wife was always annoyed to find queen ants everywhere and called them pests. So next year I think will be a blast nabbing all kinds of dealates! I recall seeing some type of Camponotus (in our cottage and yard), Formica and Lasius ants on trails we frequented. My daughter is also excited as well as we did happen to get our first taste of trying to catch queens when Lasius Claviger decided to have a nuptial flight in our front and back yard. We even got to see them mating close up. Such a great experience, we caught about 12 but let 10 of them go when I found out they were parasitic. As a newbie I wasn't prepared to take on a founding of this type of colony (yet?). I did give to two of them to a colleague who is also into the hobby. Another colleague who also is into the hobby gave me one of his three Camponotus Noveboracensis queens to have. She's in a test tube and unfortunately she is lagging behind the other two queens as she still did not get her first nanitics yet. She does have a cluster of eggs, I started her hibernation (as I was hoping she would get her first worker before diapause). So we'll see what happens next year with her.
Anyway, looking forward to reading everyones' experiences and reading journal's have been fun!
