Hey r/antkeeping community! 👋

I’m super excited to share my latest DIY 3D-printed modular nest, which I just built for my Camponotus fedtschenkoi colony.

I focused heavily on making maintenance easy and observation simple with these key features:

• 🗑️ Detachable garbage area: Instead of struggling to clean up debris inside the main chamber, I designed a removable drawer. I can slide it out, clean the waste without disturbing the ants, and slide it back in. It's a total game-changer!
• 💧 Glass tube watering area: Two glass water tubes integrated into the side, providing them with a constant, long-term water source that's super easy to refill.
• 🌑 Shade board : A removable black cover for the main nesting chamber, giving them a dark, cozy space when they want to hide, and allowing me to observe them easily when I lift it.
• Top ventilation and a sandy substrate for them to explore and adjust the microclimate.
  
• If you have any experience with this species or similar modular designs, I'd really appreciate your insights! I'm looking forward to connecting with other ant keepers here. 🐜

Is this a fire ant or carpenter ant?

Day 31 there appears to be 2 eggs, 9 larvae and 2 large larvae. No pupae yet. Gave a drop of 1:3 sugar water and she drank it all in under a minute. Added another drop and plan to clean what is left over in 48 hours.

It is on the cooler side in the room she is in, about 70F. The test tube is wrapped in a towel and in a cabinet so there's no draft or temperature changes.

Still, happy to have her.

Good day! Captured this ant in our backyard. It’s about 15mm long. Could anyone help us identify it and let us know how to best take care of it? Thank you!

Ive disconnected the digging nest and added sugar water + honey to the outworld and a blanched cricket, lets see how they grow!

Small inbreeding crematogaster with intercastes...

Hi, my ant queen moved into the test tube just a week ago. I was wondering whether she’s getting enough water. The cotton looks a bit dry, or is it fine?

be in very good condition

I am trying to decide which of these 3 esthetic ants nests is the best for my colony. The first one seems good from photos, but in the description, it says that it can house up to 250 lasius workers. Now that wouldn't be a problem, but they currently have about 200 brood, so if that is right, they might outgrow it before it even arrives.

The second is the medium version of the same nest. The problem is that in its description, it says it can house up to 2000 lasius workers, and I am worried that it would be too large. The third is the small ytong nest, which, to me, seems a little more spatious, even though in its description it says the same thing, 250 max. Which should I pick?

Hey guys I am looking to get into ant keeping with lasius niger for the first time, any tips

So i currently have a couple of myrmica rubras in the founding stage and i was wondering how the polygyny works since i heard myrmica sometimes do it

Hi, I've just got my first Messor Barbarus queen with a dozen or so workers.

They're all in the test tube which I have wrapped in dark cloth and put out of the way so they are dark, undisturbed and the room is always in the 20's (C).

Am I right that now I do nothing for a week or so, then I can attach them to the nest and outworld? The tube has liquid at the end, stopped with cotton wool, and obviously the plug isn't airtight, I'll keep an eye and make sure the liquid doesn't somehow run out, but are they good while they settle?

Or am I meant to do things sooner?

Thanks all.

Hi friends! I'm hoping to build my first colony, and am wondering if you could point me to a beginner's guide for how to do this. Thanks so much!

Can someone tell be what stage this brood is in

I think the eggs stage is almost over.

Melbourne Australia, looks like Solenopsis or monomorium, slow moving, fat, workers are yellow and pale hardens to pale orange

My queen is dead. And it's so many times it happened to me already. In this stage, a few workers and eggs. I check after a week or two and dead. I really feel like I should just give up, however I just really woul like it to work as well. I'm really sad. Can anyone help me? What's going on?

I’m located in Virginia in the US. It’s been raining a bit the past few days and I found this crawling across some mulch. It was pretty big for an ant so I stuck it in a tube. Do I got a Queen?

I’ve seen a lot of advice for transitioning your ants into daipause, but none for people that don’t have ac, a steady way to decrease temperature… as such I just wanted to know, especially from people in the UK, how you manage your colonies during this time?

I got a new Pheidole Bicarinata founding colony from Buckeye Myrmecology and I want to know once my order delivers should I leave the queen alone? Should I give her some honey and a meal worm? If so do I do it as soon as she gets here? Should I wait till she has some workers? And is there anything else I should know thanks

I’ve had this question for a while now and didn’t know how often I feed an ant colony and how to tell if they need food. also, if you should go from protein one day to sugar the next or both at the same time.

caught them in joshua tree california. i know quality isnt that good. i do my best not to disturb them. its my first time catching queens. they all seem to have laid eggs. 2 of them still have wings. was hoping for pheidole that i seen in the area but i have no clue.

I love keeping Pogos, here in the Oregon high desert, our main population is Pogonomyrmex Salinus, a close cousin of Occidentalis.

I confess that, after I had captured a dealate queen earlier last month, I stole pupae from a wild colony on my property while they were moving to a new nest so I could give them to her and her newly born nanitics, I regret nothing and she has taken the brood into her chambers.

But one might wonder what went through her pinhead brain realizing the children weren't hers, perhaps she is just as guilty as I for accepting these younglings.