10 replies to this topic

[futurebird]

Can you remember what first caught your eye about antkeeping? What got you interested in the hobby? I've always liked insects, and was considering getting a pet spider, but when I saw this video by "Ant's Australia" from Jordan Dean I was enthralled by the look of the little formicarium he creates. It seemed so exciting to be able to watch the queen and the brood-- having a window into that hidden world. 

 

 

For the longest time I thought that I *had* to find AAC (ytong) to keep ants, but then I saw this video petri-dish nests, and realized that there were more options. I think people new to the hobby tend to get dazzled by all of the options for formicarium. Test tubes are often the best. Less is more is a hard lesson to learn with antkeeping. But, part of the issue is the beauty of formicariums is part of what draws people to the hobby. 

 

 

And by this time I'd gotten a few books about ants and started learning more about them. I would end up buying a colony of Pogonomyrmex from Tar Heel ants. A colony that would thrive and last nearly 3.5 years. The queen passed away last year, sadly and I'll miss them ... though I don't think I'll get Pogonomyrmex again. Although I never got stung worrying about it gave me constant anxiety. And it's nice to be able to pick up ants with your hands and Pogonomyrmex just can't do that. 

 

Was there anything that first got you excited about ants? I'm looking forward to raising founding queens again this year. The founding stage is so remarkable. I've come to like smaller ants more than I ever thought I would. It's hard to imagine a time before I was obsessed with ants... what did I do with my time?

 

 

Edited by futurebird, March 4 2024 - 4:07 AM.

[GOCAMPONOTUS]

When I first found antscanada a few years back when he was really doing good content and then I was hooked with Jordan dean.

[Artisan_Ants]

I watched AntsCanada many years back. I most of all my main knowledge from there. I found many queens (P. imparis) years back but was only successful with them last year.

[Rrar]

I believe AntsCanada got me real hooked when I saw his massive colonies. Took me a while to realize that was took a longggggggggg time. 

[GOCAMPONOTUS]

Yes antscanada hooked many of my friend into ant keeping when I showed them .

[antsriondel]

Once on a vacation a found a massive parasitic Formica colony that got me interested. I soon found out about ant keeping through several Ants Canada videos and soon after that I started catching Queens. Now I am a experienced ( At least I think so) ant keeper with several Ant colonies.

[Manitobant]

I've been into insects since i was really young and always knew i wanted to pursue entomology, but funnily enough i never really cared about ants until I randomly stumbled upon an AC video in my youtube feed. Before that they were actually among my least favourite insects to look at and study!

[Virginian_ants]

You probably could've had a thing named "Ants Canada"  because he got a lot of people in.

[thatoneperson]

Empires of the Undergrowth. Search it up.

[T.C.]

The gel ant farms many many years back. I thought it was cool and later on looked into the potential of long term options. That was the end of the gel farms.

[Mushu]

I grew up with a backyard that had about 5-6 Pogonomyrmex spp colonies. I used to see nuptial flights often. I was young and ignorant at the time. I was always interested in them and anting is a fairly small(though gaining popularity) community and even smaller back then.

I really got into it years later when I visited an ant forum, I believe it was on taptalk that a guy named Antdude moderated. He was a spelling Nazi so some old timers may know who I am talking about.

I actually met and use to converse with Antscanda on there. He was barely starting out at the time. I had no idea who he was until he posted a YouTube video of his Canada for talent audition. No wonder his videos were always top notch and had good music(I asked him about a Hispanic song that I liked from one of his videos), even though I was Asian.

I was planning to catch a Pogonomyrmex queen at my uncles place that summer and asked my brother who still lived there to keep and eye out after rain in summer for winged ants outside the nest the day after. As luck would have it my buddy who works at LAX saw a nuptial flight while working on one of the sites and he picked up a few queens. I took one and was the only one who successfully founded the a colony in a test tube. I made hydrostone nests with Petri dishes with a 10 gallon outworld. I was always interested in nature and watched lots of ant documentaries but just used logic. I just thought to myself queens who found after a rain, the chamber must be pretty humid so I just tried to mimic the environment. The colony grew to about 500+ before I gave it away to my same buddy who gave me the queen as life got in the way.

I posted pictures on the ant forum and Antscanada actually asked me to post some care tips for harvester ants on his brand new site that sells ant equipment. I felt I just got kinda lucky so didn’t feel qualified to give care tips but he was nice and insisted so I did.

After getting back into the hobby recently, I’ve always wanted honeypots and had planned a trip to look for them back then but never got around to doing it. With more disposable income and much more information and advancements in the hobby it made it much easier and part of the fun I enjoy is creating a setup you enjoy and that works. I picked up M. placodops and they’re doing quite well even with some self inflicted setbacks. I also picked up a Texas Placodops queen from Antopia(great service and healthy queens) recently and is still in the founding stage.