What Is Ant Keeping? - Ant Keeping Guide For Beginners
Bruma 5 min read
In short
Ant keeping is the hobby of keeping ants as pets, made mainstream in the mid-1950s by Uncle Milton's ant farm. Getting started costs little or nothing: all you need is a newly mated queen ant and a test tube setup, then a bigger nest once the colony grows.
Hi guys! I hope you’re doing well!
Today, we’re going to learn what ant keeping is and why so many people are starting to keep ants as little pets!
Let’s get into it!
Introduction
So you want to know what ant keeping is? In a nutshell, ant keeping is merely a term to indicate the hobby of keeping ants as pets.
Yes, you heard right! Ants as pets! Around the world, more and more people are starting to join this amazing and underrated hobby!
This unusual hobby started to go mainstream in the mid-1950s, thanks to the famous entrepreneur Milton Levine. As a kid, he enjoyed watching ants work relentlessly all day long, digging tunnels in his backyard and going up and down the driveway in search of food.
As an adult, he created one of the best-selling toys of all time: Uncle Milton's ant farm.
The ant farm was built using the so-called sandwich ant nest setup, which consists of two acrylic or glass plates placed together, separated by a small space filled with dirt.
With this type of setup, the ant keeper can watch the ants dig tunnels in the dirt and can clearly see everything that happens inside the formicarium.
The toy was so successful that during the next two decades, Levine sold over twelve million of them! Since then, the hobby of ant keeping has grown at a steady pace, evolving from a simple childhood pastime into an actual hobby enjoyed by thousands of people around the world!
In the last decade, the hobby has grown at an extremely fast pace. Now, there are actual companies that specialize in building and selling products dedicated to ant keeping! Nests, ant food, accessories, and even the ants themselves!
Every year, there are new products and new companies that dedicate their entire time to facilitating the work of ant keepers, attracting more and more people to the hobby.
For example, you can check out my review of the ANTCUBE Starter Set Combi, in which I take a detailed look at the super cool glass nest in the picture above! This is the perfect nest for beginners, and its unique design makes it one of the best-looking products currently available on the market!
Why Keep Ants as Pets?
But why keep ants as pets? you may wonder. Well, there are many reasons to choose to keep ants instead of other animals.
The first reason is that, contrary to what you may think, ants are extremely cool creatures. There are more than 12,000 different species of ants around the world, and each one is unique with its own peculiar characteristics.
Some have giant heads, which they use to break seeds and eat the tasty part inside!
Some have the ability to spray a particular type of acid to defend themselves, and some are actual farmers, creating tiny farms of aphids, which they milk to get their extremely sweet honeydew!
It’s super fascinating to watch the ants' behaviors! How they organize inside the colony, find food, build their nests from scratch, and care for the queen, the mother of all the ants in the colony.
You can learn a lot just by watching the ants!
Another reason to keep ants as pets is that they are extremely satisfying! Starting a colony from a single queen is an amazing achievement!
Watching the colony grow from a couple of workers to more than a thousand ants gives you an awesome feeling! The ants grow with you, and considering that some queen ants live for more than 15 years, they can be a significant part of your life!
If you want to find out more about the reasons why you should keep ants as little pets, you should definitely check out my guide on why you should keep ants as pets! In this guide, I list many great reasons to start exploring this amazing hobby called ant keeping!
How Do I Get Started With Ant Keeping?
Getting started with this hobby is extremely easy and doesn’t require a lot of money. Actually, you can become an ant keeper without spending any money at all! All you need is a newly mated queen ant and a place to keep her safe.
Usually, to create the perfect environment for the queen, ant keepers use the so-called test tube setup. Basically, it consists of a normal test tube, half-filled with water.
A cotton ball blocks the water from entering the queen chamber and creates a humid surface from which the ants can drink without any problem.
If you want to learn more about how to build a test tube setup, I suggest you check out this detailed tutorial! It covers all the steps you need to create the best possible environment for your queen!
This is all you need to start your own ant colony! Once the colony has grown to a certain size, and it becomes difficult to feed the ants without having some escapees, you can move them to an ant nest.
Online, you can find many videos on how to build an ant nest without spending any money, using things you can easily find in your house. For example, you can build a dirt-based ant nest using just an old jar, some dirt, and some plants!
In this article, I provide a detailed tutorial on how to make the extremely cool glass jar in the picture above! It's a fun and relaxing little project you can do on the weekend, and it doesn't require any special skills!
So this is it! The amazing world of ant keeping!
I hope I’ve convinced you to give this really awesome and underrated hobby a try! I promise you will not regret it!
I hope you have found this guide helpful!
If you’re planning to buy some ant nests and start your adventure into the world of ant keeping, I suggest you check out this product review! It’s a really cool ant nest made by WaKooshi, a great ant keeping company based in the U.K.!
FAQs
5Ant keeping is the hobby of keeping ants as pets. It started to go mainstream in the mid-1950s and has grown at an extremely fast pace in the last decade, with companies now selling nests, ant food, accessories and even the ants themselves. More and more people around the world are joining.
Ant keeping became popular in the mid-1950s thanks to Milton Levine and his Uncle Milton's ant farm, one of the best-selling toys of all time. Levine sold over twelve million of them in the next two decades. The farm let people watch ants dig tunnels in dirt between two plates.
To start keeping ants, you need a newly mated queen ant and a safe place for her, typically a test tube setup. It is a test tube half-filled with water, blocked by a cotton ball that gives the ants a humid surface to drink from. You can even start without spending any money at all.
Ants help the environment through soil aeration, seed dispersal and pest control. There are more than 12,000 different species of ants around the world, each with its own peculiar characteristics, from seed-breaking giant heads to tiny aphid farms. You can learn a lot just by watching the ants.
Yes, you can make an ant nest at home using everyday items like an old jar, some dirt and some plants. Many videos online show how to build one without spending any money, using things you can easily find in your house. It's a fun and relaxing project for a weekend, and it needs no special skills.
Author
Bruma
