How to Build an Ant Farm | Natural Formicarium 

Hi guys. Hope you found this video of help! Just wanted to let you all know I've just launched a Patreon page! www.patreon.com/antsaustralia I’ve always been reluctant to make demands upon you guys. Very rarely do ask anyone to like or share my content. Which begs the question, “why start a Patreon page?” Well, what changed my mind was the realisation that, without the support of donations, pursuing my dream of producing Ants Australia videos full-time, simply can’t be done. Any contribution vastly exceeds individual ad revenue here on RU-vid. So if you enjoy my content, and want to see more, please consider chipping in. I’d like to thank you all for your overwhelming support throughout the years. Whether that be through your donations, inspiring words, or just your silent attention :)

When I found a queen ant on a school field trip, I was amused. I said to my friend “oh look a queen ant” replied “I know someone who keeps ants. Let me get them.” The other kid began to get extremely excited and captured it to keep. I wanted to experience that excitement, so I got into antkeeping. Added to that, we became very good friends thanks to the hobby.

His voice is so calming

It began for me in my garden where a colony of ants started to move in under an old wall, instead of removing it I decided to let them be and observe their behavior. I was fascinated by their sheer power and determination and decided to learn more about them. I found channels like you that showed that you can keep ants and learn about their world. I've had several colony's over the years I kept ants but none that special as the ant colony in my backyard

As a biology grad student, I have always loved nature and I think ants are one of the most interesting animals. Their solical interactions as well as their capability to create complex nests and tunnels are unique and amazing to witness. I started keeping my own ants around 8 months ago. Right now I have 3 small ant colonies which passed their founding stage and they are growing fast!

I have been waiting for this video for almost a year now! It's finally here ;D

Wow, these naturalistic formicariums are beautifully made! The video is so well organized too, which is what I love about your channel. Looking forward to more :D

That big tank is a pretty realistic scaling job. Love it.

I began keeping ants from one day stumbling upon AntsCanada's RU-vid channel. From there I found your channel, and many many others! From there on I was absolutely hooked up collecting, & keeping ants. Cut to a year later, I now have over close to 30 different species. So, thank you, for helping me gain such an appreciation for these little critters!

AntsCanada is the first channel i discovered about Ant Keeping. Which in turn led me to find this channel. Watching how amazing it can be to keep ants has really opened my eyes to the lives of insects and their world. I am currently not keeping ants because i haven't been able to find a queen. Currently looking for Camponotus or Carpenter ants before their nuptial flights come to an end.

Ever since I was a kid I have always been fascinated with Ants. About how colonies thousands strong can live as one organism each ant is a small cog in a huge machine. I love most of all how orgonised they are from digging out their colonies to taking down pray and finding food. I dont yet have my own farm as i have never had suitable living conditions, now I do i have been looking in to starting my own. :D

This channel is criminally underrated

Wicked video :D glad to see that those strobe ants are surviving the winter!

Btw you should put a barrier no matter what to prevent raids

What made me want to keep ants is the beautiful process of raising them, the exciting moment when you find your first queen is a feeling unlike any other its an amazing experience and makes you realize the little things are way bigger then they seem and how amazing nature really is also your videos made me want to keep them you showing how cool and delicate they are really made my mind think deeper and i was so fascinated in way i never thought i could be thanks.

Why I wanted to keep ants? I honestly hated ants and had a phobia towards ants. But slowly watching your videos it made me curious to see how ant keeping would be. I slowly gained confidence and started to keep ants. Now I have over 8 colony's! Thanks Jordan!

I watched this just to make the massive fish tank enclosure with no Ants, they’ve always seemed so complicated to keep and I just wanted a nice little ecosystem with plants and good soil to make for my springtails, isopods, millipedes, etc. Thanks for the tutorial!

This year, I've begun researching nuptial flight schedules because I'm planning to start keeping ants. For most of my life, I've been in therapy for an anxiety disorder and a variety of crippling phobias including insectophobia and trypophobia, both of which made ants terrifying. Years ago, just talking about larval species of insect would make me panic and scratch my skin bloody. Watching RU-vid videos by AntsCanada and this channel in addition to therapy have helped me warm up to ants and some other insect species slowly. There are still many insects that I am afraid of or uncomfortable with, but I have learned to appreciate the beauty of ants and I want to celebrate this major step in overcoming my phobias by raising and keeping a colony of my own in a naturalistic terrarium set up, because like you said for some people watching the ants come up to forage and occasionally seeing just glimpses of their nesting activity below can be more than enough.

I love the fish tank setup! 2019 anyone?

I started keeping ants because I have always had a love for insects and animals. It is so amazing being able to look after your own little ant city and see what kind of interesting things they do. Keep up the great vids.

I love keeping ants because when I was little my big brother inspired me to explore our world. Both of learned to love nature and ants threw your ant youtube channel and now I keep ants. Thanks For The Inspiration Ants Australia

Ever since I was a kid I was fascinated by ants. The way the work together, their life cycle... Everything. I was unable to keep them as a kid due to my perents, but as an adult I couldn't wait to capture my first queen during nuptial flights and start a colony. There is something magical about seeing directly into the ants founding chambers and witnessing the beginning of a colony.. It's like nature is sharing a secret with you. That's why I wanted to keep ants.

When I was a lot younger (5-10) I used to watched documentaries on the natural world for fun, as I was drawn to the natural beauty, and thus started keeping some exotic pets and animals. Keeping ants has been a great experience and given me a good upfront and personal look into the natural world. Also love the vids, keep up the good work👍

As a little kid I have always tried to keep ants. But I never had the knowledge to do so properly and they always ended up poorly. 20 years later with the help of great ant loving RU-vidrs sharing ant knowledge, has given me the ability to care for ants properly. Caught a queen this summer and am so excited to care for them and watch them grow. The unity of ants is astounding and mesmerizing.

Wow it’s not that often I watch a 30 min RU-vid video all the way through. This is so good. Your channel is fantastic

I've watched this video over ten times its just so relaxing watching ants do there thing.

A small ant species invaded my Florida, USA home. Needless to say they could not stay, but one colony moved into my stovetop grill. It is a large stovetop with a built in grill and I rarely use it, so I to decided observe this particular colony. To keep them somewhat contained, I put food and a water soaked paper towel out for them. I am intrigued with how well they work together! It has been a few months now and it is time they moved out. I have discovered that I may be able to get them to move into a formicarium, if I do it right. What a new and interesting hobby to learn about at age 71!

I started keeping ants for two reasons. Firstly, because the practice of observing and caring for ants is meditative and calming. Secondly, because watching the colonies slowly grow and persist in problem-solving inspires me to be patient and persistent myself in daily life.

I wanted to keep ants because of your videos! I started only recently but my first colony is expanding slowly. I wanted to watch my colony form from one queen and I wasn’t let down. I was amazed and can’t imagine me not keeping ants so I’ll keep going. Thanks for introducing me to this great hobby!

The first I heard about ant keeping was from RU-vid. I realised their beauty and enjoyed watching them on RU-vid. After learning how easy it is to keep them, I realised it fitted my requirements: low maintenance, fish tank sized and one which will not poop all over the house.so I Wan to keep ants .

I have been working as an early educator at a preschool in Southern Vermont for the past three years. Having much appreciation and love for science and nature I strive to bring elements of the outdoors into the classroom. Having a natural ant farm would serve as an ongoing incredibly rich educational experience for the children. It would not only teach them how to love the earth, but also develop empathy and curiosity from a scientific approach!

I always wanted to keep ants because they are so creative, smart and hard working. Most of all they are so fun to watch.

My ants have walled themselves in a test tube! I placed the tube in a small formicarium with some sand and few rocks and sneaky bastards have used the sand to build a 5mm wall in the tube. What's that all about?

Mean while in other universe ant: we have humans, how to build a human farm!

I started keeping ants one year ago because I came across youtube videos of ant keeper sharing their experiences (like you) and it all reminded me my love for ants when i was a kid :)

What made me want to keep ants is your and every ant you tubers videos. Ants were so interesting and I’ve always had a connection with nature. Also, I’ve now got a Formica queen ready so that I can start Ants America. I know, it’s very original.

This so cool, I am making this, no doubt!

My 4 year old son was stung by an ant about 6 months ago, and was really upset. To try to explain to him (and my 5 year old daughter) that to an ant he was a very scary giant, and he got stung because the ant was afraid, I turned to RU-vid. Since then, both the kids and I have been raptured watching and learning about ants and how they are kept as pets. I have since caught both kids following wild ants around the garden, and found myself watching ant videos long into the night. Mum is certainly not convinced about ant keeping however... Yet

Ants really changed my life , I used to mess about in life and school , but when I first caught my first Camponotus? Queen I was so fascinated by everything she did , from laying eggs to drinking honey. Now I focus a lot better at school and our new biology topic is social insects! I’ve watched you since your updates on the big headed ants and I want to say thanks for all the great tips on raising queens and colony’s , your video helped me raise a carpenter ant colony 100s of ants strong , Keep up the fantastic work!

I had once kept ants as a hobby. I religiously scanned Facebook groups for information aswell as care tips and help. However, due to the unpopularity of ants near and around me. Both my parents have made clear to not want any living in their house. However, this brings me to the reason I have not rejoined the hobby as of yet. I have chosen a new hobby that endulges the true beauty of nature. That is fish keeping. My once deep love of ants had transgressed into an appreciation for fish. Thanks Dean, you initial content on this channel is what inspired me to keep ants in the first place.

We have been waiting for this for months

After seeing one of your video's quite a while ago, I started keeping these little creatures. They now live in a self-made ytong nest wich I made after your tuturial: how to make an aac nest. And I got another small colony living in a single test tube at the moment😀😀

I wanted to keep ants because of a variety of antyoutubers. The antyoutubecommunity is very helpfull at guiding me through the antkeeping experience!

what made me want to keep ants: RU-vid. i saw people like you caring for and showing off these beautiful creatures and i wanted to do the same. you are one of the people who inspired me most to keep ants because all of your videos are showing off the joy people can get from ant keeping. now i keep ants myself and its just as great as you make it seem!

Love this video! Very educational and relaxing voice! Excellent job. thnk you :D

what made me want to keep ants: one day last autumn, I was walking through a nice forested path near my neighborhood, and I saw an absolutely gorgeous ant. The worker was a beautiful dark reddish-brown with a bright, amber colored gaster. I snapped a few pics, and set out to find out what species she was. I later found out that the species was Aphaenogaster Tennesseensis, which is one of the rarest kept captive species of ants due to the fact that the queens are social parasites, and raising them in captivity almost never works. I eventually wanted to learn everything I could about ants, watch every ant video on the internet, especially the ones from this channel, and I wanted to find out all of the species native to my area. That day in the forest, or rather, that one single worker alone sparked my interest in ants, and is now the reason that I have 3 colonies, one of which is a colony Aphaenogaster Tennesseensis that has begun producing alates, and 2 more founding queens. I don't think I can ever forget that one lonely worker and all she has done for me.

Watching your videos and ants Canada really got me interested in finding queens, though I haven’t found one yet. I hope to get one soon, because my last setup wasn’t very successful. Thanks -logan

I never knew much about ants but after watching this channel I became fascinated with ants and other insects alike. This drove my now growing obsession with ants and other insects . I know properly understand and appreciate these wonderful little creatures. All this finally lead me to keep my own colonies of ants such as mymicra rubra, which is the one I have now.

Yes thanks this will be so helpful when my colony grows! THANK YOU!

Great video! :-)

Wow. Came back to look at your channel and this was 2 years ago. I remember that I was at the airport waiting for a flight when I say your new video pop up and I watched it. It was only 2 years ago but it somehow feels nostalgic. Thanks for the memories :D

I have been interested in keeping ants since I was around 9 years old. What hooked me to these insects is how intelligent and well coordinated they can be and watching them grow from the very start is so satisfying.

*MAKE MORE VIDEOS ABOUT ANT SPECIES*

My plants dried out in the first 20 mins

I've always liked keeping animals. When i was little i tried to keep bees...but that didn't work out tho, so i tried keeping ants in a ''tic tac'' container and i rly enjoyed watching them dig tunnels. Later on i discovered a few ant chanels like this one and that just pushed me to start ant keeping for real.

My 5yo ASD son today became very interested in ANTS after being bitten by a young "Jumping Jack" ant during his playtime at our local park. On his return home he excitedly started talking about ants to his father that my darling hubby begged me to try and change ours sons obsession. I instead embraced my lil mans obsession because I wanted him to have the same love for animals, insects and reptiles that my father gave me. So after our quick google search we happened upon your RU-vid channel and within hours watched several of your videos my son piped up and asked if we can make our own ant colony. So tomorrow we will be starting our new science project for his Homeschooling class!!

What made me want to keep ants was my love for overseeing them and helping take care of them. Ant-keeping in a way makes me feel like a God or a protector. These ants think as one, as a colony. They're not selfish, and are smarter and more unique than one might think. So, taking good care of these ants makes me feel like I, myself, am a part of the colony too. I also love spotting differences within different species of ants. Each specie is special in their own little way.

update of sugar ants pls :)

What made me want to keep ants was the ability to watch a whole empire grow that you take care of and make sure stay healthy and there is soooo much to learn about all sorts of different species I see almost no reason not to keep them and has been one of the most entertaining this I have done ever.

AC family like here

Be careful about adding that peppermint. According to many sources, its oil can repel ants and flies.

What made me want to keep ants was just the beauty of them and just the simple things they do, by me watching them do these things it just makes me feel closer to them. Now at school my friends call me ant boy because of how much I know, but ever since I was a kid I would watch these creatures in my backyard for ages.

I've always loved ants because of their power tot work together without speaking to each other. Then i found your channel and began waiting for the nuptial flights!

What if I made a channel called ants Arizona and my intro was "HEY What's up double A's?!"

Am I first?...I think lol

I'm keeping my Ants because.. Since I saw Antscanada, you and Ant vision I been trying to grow my own colony with two queens and seven eggs. These canponotes spp. species has giving me a lot of interest of all Insekts and animals. And I've been watching Ant RU-vidrs for years. 🐜🐜❤️ **Ant Love Forever**

What made me keep ants? Well you and other youtubers like you did! I always wanted a insect pet but I could never choose one... then I found your channel and after that I started learning about ants and now I am keep queen ants in a test tube set up and I’m really excited because she laid 7 eggs. Ants have inspired me to appreciate nature more and what role ants play in it. I thank you and other RU-vidrs for an experience like this.

i started kepieng ants because i saw your videos and antscanda and now it has become a part of my life

I always used to keep ants when I was younger, but I only collected workers because i didn’t know how to catch a queen. A few months back, I was bored on RU-vid and searched up scorpion feeding videos. It was here that I came across a channel called ‘The Dark Den’. After watching this channel for a couple of hours, I came across a video about an ant colony of his. While watching it, I relived memories of ant keeping as a child, and started to keep ants.

I started keeping ants because of your videos in youtube. I was amazed of how organised and brilliant they are as a colony. Your 3 part ants raising tutorial got me to smoothly start my very first colony. Thank you so much for your vids. God bless your channel!!

I have looked at many documentaries and I always found the parts about ants the most interesting. How they comunicate, search food, work together, overcome obstacles and the huge amount of diversity. I went on a research about ants and found out about the ant keeping hobby. It wasn't long after that, that I catched my firts ant queen.

I've always wanted an ant farm but never really knew how to start one. When I stumbled across tutorial videos on how to catch a queen and start your own farm is when I finally started my own farm.

i have just recently got an ant colony because i was inspired by you its the best thing ive ever done in my life

The quality of your videos are AWESOME...

I first saw this channel and have been binge watching every single video! You have a great way of talking and the tone of your voice seems like you're really excited to share the world of ants! Someday I hope I can be an antkeeper like you!

As a child 25 years ago I thought having an ant farm was cool, but was always discouraged that the sets never came with a Queen. But now as an adult and after finding so much useful information from youtubers such as yourself I have to say the reason I keep ants is because I enjoy the challenge of trying to keep them happy and healthy. Whether it be designing my own nest with sufficient space and hydration or finding the food preference of a specific colony

I just find it so interesting watching a colony growing up. It's like a human community, like they think about every step. They have a place where they put their garbage, a place where the queen breeds, a place where they put their eggs and so on. They always have a plan. That's what made me keeping ants. Watching them gives me a feeling of order in this messy world.

I have always had a fascination of insects, so I wasn't surprised when a ant video popped up in my RU-vid recommended bar (it was one of your older videos) and ever scince I have been learning off you tube and have been growing my own colonies I know have a golden tail camponotus colony 43 workers strong. And that's how I got into ant keeping. Thanks

yesssss it took sooo long. Glad to see u back

my interest in ants all started when I was browsing youtube and came across its Canada and started watching his channel ant eventually came across yours and since then I have been a regular watcher of your videos and just this past week I decided to keep my first queen ant a black crazy ant she currently has no workers and is in a small test tube set up but she has plenty of brood. So thank you for sparking my interest in these wonderful creatures! :)

"What made you want to keep ants" I always had a small interest for ants but the realization that I could get a closer look into their every day lives made me ecstatic with joy.

Thanks for this video Jordan now I have subscribed and watched every video on your channel and have liked all of them. Thank for these incredible video as always. You have changed my life with ants so I would just like to say thanks :D

You and other ant RU-vidrs were the main thing that encouraged me to keep ants. Thanks to people like you, I could respect their behavior and abilities, and found out how easy it was to find and care for these amazing creatures. Ants used to always be pests, something that would be fun to scorch with a magnifying glass on a boring day. Ants were never interesting, but suddenly, I was an ant keeper! I had never been interested in ants before, let alone keeping them, but the thing that made me start keeping them, were RU-vid videos like these, by you and other great RU-vidrs such as AntsCanada and Ant Invasion. I started to respect their place in nature, and found their behavior so much more interesting. And then I realized how easy they were to keep, how easy they were to find, and their amazing, sometimes aggressive, behavior, and their interesting reproductive system. Soon after watching these videos, I found myself respecting ants, instead of stomping on them. On summer days that I would have been relaxing or vacationing, I found myself outside, observing ants, even looking for queens! I now have 3 fertilized queens, and I'm so excited for them to establish colonies, and it's all thanks to people who like you how run these channels. This is what encouraged me to keep ants. Thank you.

From a young age I was always fascinated with the small world of insects and other critters. I would spend hours watching documentaries on nature and I would find myself glued to the screen whenever ants were showcased, their cooperation, and persistence in any obstacle thrown at them made them stand out to me. Then one day I was walking my dog and saw a particularly large ant, I went home looked into it and found out it was a queen ant and my passion was ignited again for ants, after that I spent hours upon hours reading up on ants and watching various videos on youtube. This summer I caught my first Camponotus queen and can't wait to see it expand and grow into a massive ant empire!

This is one of my most favorite builds of the channel! Hope we can see an update soon!

Tons of effort in this video, tottaly earned my subscription!

what made me want to keep ants was i went to this museum called "the deep" in the uk, it actually known for whales and aquatic creatures, but right at the end of the whole museum they had a very large colony of leaf cutter ants, they had a tube with rope in it, must have been 3-4 metres long, and the ants was transport bits of leaves back a forth from the nest, it was so interesting i spent the next 45 minutes to 1 hour, talking to the ant keeper, where he told me the basics of ant, ever since then i just wanted to keep them. i currently have 9 lasius niger queen, with brood, im looking forward for them to hatch into my first workers. keep up the good work, your videos help so much

So great to have you posting again I've been keeping track with the progress through Instagram! And what made me keep ants was just seeing all the intricate, stunning and elaborate ways they build their enclosure, work together similar to how humans build buildings, bridges and more. Another reason why I love keeping ants is even seeing the beauty of of the set up with plants, ants and other insects working together all in my own room! It really does make me feel nice and calm and i feel like i could just watche them do their thing for hours. Although I'm yet to make such a masterpiece I have gotten a lot of inspiration and motivation seeing yours.

I started ant keeping just now. I have 7 queens with 0 workor, I found them about a week ago and I really love watching them laying eggs. I watched a lot videos about ant keeping and now I have my own queens it's amazing for me. I watched a lot of your videos and I learned a lot from them about ant keeping. Thank you very much.

Incredible video! Great production value, narration, tutorial, info etc... Well done!

I have always loved small critters as a child but I say a video about ants a few years back and realized how amazing they are, I tried to make a ant nest by putting ants in a tub of dirt but of course that did not go well and I gave up soon after, but about a year ago I watched all of your how to raise an ant nest series and figured out what I did wrong and now all thanks to you I have a susscessful ant colony of Formica fuscas. I started raising ants because of there shear beauty and because of you to!

What made me keep ants was watching AntsCanada’s videos with my friend after he introduced the channel to me. After a couple of months I found your channel and watched the video how to catch a queen ant and decided to look for my own. I loved seeing the colonies move as a whole to accomplish a single goal. It truly made me see ants in a new way.

I thought ant keeping was gonna be such a fun and exciting job and it is I love watching these little guys everytime i can and I love to see that more and more people are starting to join the community of ant keeping

This video is sooooooo cool!!!! We found it when we were researching homage ant habitats and this is so inspirational!!! We are already making notes for our habitat!

Ive got a friend at school keeping ants and he is very joyful about it so i started to look after them when he was on holiday ( with permission obviously) and i love the way the scurry around. I havent started ant keeping yet as i dont have the money to do so, but i will start this month when my friend swaps nests for his nigers and ill buy his old nest off of him.

I got to antkeeping just by simply watching ants, i watched what are they doing and it was quite interesting so i searched on youtube things like how to catch a queen and other videos related to ants. They are very hardworking creatures. And one day i found a Campanotus queen. And till now i have like 10 queens with 5-10 workers per tube. And i still got my first Campo queen. I have them 4 months but i started learning about ants past year🙂Thanks you Ant Australia for helping me with my antkeeping hobby, you have awesome channel

ive been looking for this site for seemingly a long time! thank you! my husband is a fan!

Dude, one of the best channels on the platform keep it up!

I really like the large Bull ant set up, looks amazing and seems that it would provide many years of colonization and entertainment for the owner.

Stumbled upon one of AntsCanada's videos and soon found myself on this channel. I've always been interested in entomology, and this seemed a perfect (and low-effort) opportunity to keep some close at hand. I've now got four young colonies on my desk with me as I work every day!