Good afternoon everyone,

My apologies for writing this here if there is an English language section somewhere and I just cannot find it - the forum can be a little difficult to navigate.

I used to keep ants when I was in school and I have become enthusiastic again in keeping ants. I purchased a Lasius niger Queen who has 5 workers and about 5/6 larvae. I have placed her in the foraging box which is attached to the habitat. Only one ant seems to leave the test tube (which I expected as I think the others are still fairly young), but I am pleased to see the ant is regularly getting water and checking out the food that I give it.

Does anyone have any advice or tips they can give me as a beginner? Very keen to help this colony prosper. Unfortunately, they are currently kept in the outside garden shed. I am looking to move them indoors, but my partner is not particularly thrilled with the idea of ants inside. The weather, as you can imagine, can be quite difficult in England and so I don't want them getting too cold . I am strongly considering dumping my partner and living alone with the ants!

Thanks in advance for any tips or advice you can give me!

Joshua.

Hello Joshua,

I am sorry, but there is no specific english section as far as I know.

the outworld is a dangerous place for an ant. Small and young colonies need every member. So they don't want to take to many risks if it isn't necessary. Most of them usualy stay at the nest and help the queen with the brood.

Best Regards
Saskia

If you're only speaking english this probably isn't the right forum for you.

There's a big US forum, Formiculture.com:
https://www.formiculture.com/

There's also a Reddit for antkeeping and a Discord chatserver if you want to just casually talk about ants or ask any questions (link to Discord is the link below):
https://www.reddit.com/r/antkeeping/com ... rd_server/

This might help you if you're looking for basic antkeeping information, just read through all the guides (Getting started, test tube setup (I guess you can ommit the finding a queen one), founding a colony etc.):
https://ant-keepingwiki.com/w/index.php ... =Main_Page

joshuarrr20 hat geschrieben: ↑

22. April 2020, 15:42

I am looking to move them indoors, but my partner is not particularly thrilled with the idea of ants inside.

As long as you're using a tried and true method of keeping the ants in their enclosure like talcum powder or a lid (that provides enough ventilation),
there really should't be a problem. Try getting that across to your partner. If there's no other option but to keep them in the shed, I'd use a small heat mat
to keep them cozy. Of course you would need some electricity for that.