What I Learned from My Ant Colony
“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.” -Shakespeare
I bought them on the street from a ten year-old. We’ll call him “B.” He had four vials and I wasn’t sure which one was the best deal. I’m no fool, of course I’d brought cash — $120, American, but I didn’t feel comfortable negotiating right there, outside the library.
Like I said, it my first time. Did I mention I’d never made this kind of deal?
I couldn’t decide: camponatus or crematogaster?
A few weeks before, my husband and I had a disagreement about some sewer roaches we’d spotted in the pantry. I now know the species is the “American Roach.”
I’d eyed a tiny bug that looked oh-so-roach-like. Was it a young roach? After no sightings of the two-inch bandits scurrying up the pantry walls for nearly a month, I had started to relax.
My husband stubbornly contended this insect, smaller than a pencil’s eraser, was just “some tiny bug.”
I had my doubts, so I went to youtube to prove my point. I clicked on the first roach video I found: a guy who was raising up roaches to feed to his ant colony. He said this would be the equivalent of “grass-fed beef” for his fire ants.
Huh? I was hooked, obviously.
I didn’t want to raise roaches, and I hadn’t learned enough about their life cycle to identify what I’d found in the pantry, but I no longer cared.
This youtube “ant man” had a room full of terrariums and hundreds of videos, not to mention his OWN CHANNEL with thousands of subscribers.
I soon learned that ant colonies have transformed from kid hobby “farms” — remember Uncle Milt’s Ant Farm from the 60s?— into another dimension.
The new world of ant devotees meant that some guy on youtube made his living with an ant channel, for chrissake, and was raising delicious, prime-cut roach meat.
The Global Ant Network
His name is Mikey Bustos, and he’s a Canadian who now makes his home in Manila, Phillipines. He started his own ant biz to combine a love of ants (and all creatures) with a talent for narrating stories.
Mikey isn’t your average antkeeper. This guy is a professional comedian and a seasoned storyteller. Every week or so, he posts videos about one of his colonies, complete with backstory, conflict, triumph and tragedy.
His channel is called Ants Canada (AC).
At first, I didn’t realize it was all about the stories, but now that I keep an established colony I see stories unfold on the sands of their “outworld” every day.
Mikey started the Global Ant Network (GAN) because he respects international law. It’s a dick move to transport a non-native species — of ants, or anything — to a new environment. Illegal insect transport (bug smuggling? Ant-trafficking?) can permanently damage an ecosystem.
GAN solves some of these problems, allowing neophytes like myself to purchase a fledgling or established colony from a local ant keeper, legally and ethically.
The Season of the Ant
I was too late.
It was October, the rains had come and gone, and the ants had flown. They’d already mated, and I wasn’t going to find a fertilized queen marching along a sidewalk. I’d have to wait till next summer for the most of the species in my area.
Arizona is an ant utopia, with 352 known species yet only one GAN farmer. I was disappointed that my ant keeping timing sucked, but relieved that “B” was available, so I decided to make the investment and become an ant keeper.
I arranged to meet him in a public place where I felt safe. Who knew what kind of weirdo would find and raise ants?
He showed up with his mom and his best friend (also ten).
He was a nice kid who, based on the money he made on our C. Cerasi deal, will one day become a very successful businessman.
We Do the Deal
“B” had never made any money in his life. To be fair, at ten this wasn’t exactly a black mark or evidence of a slacker. I had never purchased ants — or any insect — so I wasn’t sure what to expect. This meant both of us were nervous.
After looking over the four test tubes and making awkward small talk, I decided to go with the genus (Crematogaster) with the fewest ants. The tubes crawling with 50+ ants intimidated me, frankly.
The Crematogastor Cerasi test tube held a queen and five workers. That seemed manageable. They looked healthy enough, and by this I mean they were moving around. I felt the price was high but he claimed it was a “sought-after species.” I suspected I was being fed a line, but being in no position to argue I pulled out $110 and handed it over to “B”. This kid had cornered the Arizona ant market.
Later, I discovered he was right: C. Cerasi reproduces more quickly than almost any other species, so anyone can quickly develop a thriving colony. Known commonly as “acrobat ants” for their escape abilities, this species is fun to watch as they can climb anything and easily navigate upside-down.
It was an unseasonably cold day in southern Arizona (under 60 degrees) and windy. I gladly got back inside my warm car and checked out the goods. I wasn’t green enough to look them over while on the street! They were still alive, and seemed nonplussed about just being legally trafficked.
Now home to put them in my shiny new Ants Canada (AC) formicarium.
Project Eviction
I had a housing set-up I’d purchased online from AC but it was too roomy for six ants. Instead, I hooked up the test tube with C. Cerasi to an AC portal, a clear acrylic box about the size of an old flip-phone with four outlets.
The test-tube set up contains half water, plugged by a cotton ball. This gives the ants half a tube of dry area, and a water source (they drink through the cotton) and it keeps their environment suitably humid. Over time, that cotton ball gets full of crud, ant poop specifically. It can also get moldy and that’s when the ants need to be relocated.
The end of the test tube is plugged with a cotton ball, allowing oxygen to permeate but keeping the ants fully contained.
“B” had sold me a poopy test-tube. I examined it, wondering if it was also moldy and it sure looked that way. The queen (Alice) tended to park herself right next to the black cotton.
After watching a few more ant videos (thanks, Ants Australia!) I concluded that relocating the little gals would be a piece of cake.
I attached a new test tube, half full of filtered water and plugged with a clean piece of cotton, to the other side of the AC portal. I waited for the ants to move on over the new — and far superior — world.
And waited.
One of the workers trotted over to look at the new world, then did a 180 and headed back to known territory. Not a single ant moved. Alice clung to the poopy, blackening cotton ball.
I began to panic.
I checked youtube for more information. They suggested applying light and even cold to the established ant home to persuade them to choose a warmer, darker place (the new test-tube). I complied. And, I waited.
Four days later, and nothing. I went to bed that night, a week after I began Project Eviction, feeling blue and wondering if I’d picked the wrong hobby.
How did a ten-year old have the patience for this?
On day eight, I awoke to a beautiful sight. All six ants had moved into the new test tube. Alice was happily chillin’ by the white cotton ball, waving her antennae at me with a look of — was it annoyance, or gratitude?
I Murder Some Ants
The ant herding ritual would occur three times more before the colony was large enough for a proper home.
Each time, they resisted. I had to move her pile of eggs — Alice had laid fifty or more eggs early on — with a cue tip to motivate her. The second move involved a minor flood.
I killed a few workers along the way. In the first weeks, one died by drowning in a well of honey. Later, another escaped. I grieved briefly, but I was mostly focused on keeping The Queen happy.
An egg-laying machine, Alice sat atop her piles of tiny white ant eggs like a dragon guarding a heap of jewels. The eggs grew into larvae and finally into pupae. Tiny ant bodies emerged in hues of translucent brown, and scampered around their test-tube ready to begin lives of incessant toil.
The Colony Gets a New Home
At long last, the day came when I invested in a real ant home, the “Piece of Haven” (PH) from Tar Heel Ants. I waited almost five weeks for this handmade beauty of porous stone, with a removable, magnetized glass front cover, water tower, and removable top.
The outworld — made to resemble the real “above ground” world — sits directly on top of the tunnel system, with a few fake plants for decoration, a twig, and a sandy floor. A tube leads from tunnels to outworld, and it’s all contained in two cubes smaller than a breadbox.
The final moving process began. The colony was 30+ members strong and their foot-long, ¼” diameter acrylic tunnel already led to a spacious, oval AC outworld. This original outworld is where I deposited a cricket (pre-shredded) every now and again, and where their tower of sugar water rested.
Ants need sugar and protein to live.
PH would provide more darkness. I set it up next to a heating pad, and after nearly two weeks, the workers finally moved toward the heat, transporting the “brood” (all young, in all stages of development) after scoping out the PH as safe. As usual, Alice was the last ant to relocate.
Girl Ants, Boy Ant Keepers
I fed these girls honey but soon learned sugar water was best since raw honey ferments, and it’s messy to work with. For $1.50 I bought a two month’s supply of crickets at the pet store. The most humane way to kill them, I learned, is an overnight trip to the freezer.
I experimented with wingless fruit flies (as you do) but they hopped and were hard to kill, so until I raise my own roach farm, crickets are what’s on the menu.
Where there’s a hobby, there’s an online community. Some members proved helpful; a few were even professional myrmecologists. I was impressed by the resources, like a regional chart showing when every species flies. I was astounded at the level of knowledge, building techniques, and — as usual — testosterone.
The board was 90% men and boys. I soon found myself logging in less frequently, shy about asking what were invariably idiotic questions. A lot of the members were cool, but the pissing contests that arose tried my patience. Admittedly I could benefit from more patience, hence my challenges with ant keeping.
The online community was invaluable for tips on what to do when the ants didn’t cooperate. Their advice, almost always: be patient, wait, and let nature take its course.
The ants are as smart, or smarter, than we are. They know what they need, when they need it, and how to optimize their environment.
So I learned to wait, and I learned to accept that men seem to love insects more than women do.
Whole World Kin
My C. Cerasi colony has about 200 members now, six months after “B” schooled me in the art of the ant deal. Alice stays put, but her minions have taken over both outworlds and are burrowing beneath the “ant safe” sands.
They have several projects going on.
In PH, they’ve covered a scrap of paper towel (once used to deliver cricket parts) with sand. It leans like a feather against the glass of the outworld, with a gritty trail leading up the glass, creating a covered porch where groups of ants congregate.
I’ve added three tiny fake trees to the AC outworld, to create The Grove. Workers climb the trees and surveys their kingdom on a regular basis.
I dropped in a prism shaped like a teardrop on the sand. It lies at the back as a crystal hill where the ants climb its gentle slope or crawl beneath its belly. They are burrowing underneath to create Crystal Cavern.
Alice hangs out at the back, between the sugar tower and the heated wall. Her eggs, larvae and pupae are stacked vertically along the warm glass, and in one large pile in the corner. Scores of her workers cling to the walls nearby.
I placed a tiny seashell into the sands of the PH outworld and I add water to it with a syringe, most days. They gather round, like cattle at a pond, to drink.
The acrylic tunnels are decorated with regular lines of workers, carrying grains of sand or cricket parts back to PH for Alice.
They have made themselves a home.
That “tiny bug” I found in the pantry was a roach, so we called the pest control company and they came out last week. Now the only bugs in the house besides Alice and her C. Cerasi army are dead, young Americans.
