Building Your Own Ant Farm (Part 1)

Building Your Own Ant Farm (Part 1 of 2). Ask A Biologist video with Dr. Biology and Rebecca Clark on how to build an ant farm with two recycled CD cases.

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Howto & Style

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• ant
• farm
• education
• science
• howto
• dr. Biology
• askabiologist
• ask
• biologist
• biology
• CD
• Arizona
• State
• University
• ASU

[bugloy101]

how many hours do the plaster of paris get dry. cuz i w8ted long still its wet

[AskaBiologist]

A good question. It should take about 30 minutes to setup and one day to cure. Not having a lot of experience with plaster, you might need to check some Web sources to see what the problem might be. My guess is there was too much water in the mix, but this is just a guess.

[TheTDICody]

The ants we have here are so tiny, and when I put in the ants, they were escaping through some area between the hole and dirt. I tried taping it, but they escaped still and died in the tape. what should i do?

[AskaBiologist]

As always, for detailed answers please use our Web Q&A form. Here are a few suggestions.

Modeling clay is good for sealing leaks, or a hot glue gun. Our researchers who work with tiny ants coat their nests with fluon, which is slippery to the ants. It's pretty expensive though and not easy to find - a cheaper alternative is mineral oil, but I'm not sure how well it works or how messy it is. Some ants are so small it's almost impossible to contain them.

[nafaka12]

is it me or is that just to small even for lasius niger + queen

[AskaBiologist]

The species of ant that we have mostly been working with is Messor pergandei, which has queens that are under 1 cm (0.5 inches) in length. The farm is large enough for a moderately-sized colony of Messor. From what we can tell, they should also be large enough for Lasius niger queens.

[alandavs]

Cool project. I'm trying to make an even smaller farm. Anybody have any ideas on smaller ant species that I can successfully keep in a farm about 1/3 the size of the CD farm in this video?

Thanks,

Alan

[snooki352]

when he points e sticks the finger

[luisgtatatug]

eu tenho a formiga rainha mas ela é a saúva. e ela não cabe no negocio!

[CobaltOtaku]

I'm gonna make an ant farm and dress an ant in a tiny afro and make it say "WELCOME TO THE ANT FARM!"

disney references lol

[stephen2275]

i wouldn't use that lol get a real ant farm instead of wasting time for a colony that has no room to servive.

[crazymonkey86056]

@nanoguy4098 teach me everything you can about ants!

[SabreSlushie]

Hmm, so I tried this thing out.. I have a Camponotus queen in a CD case set up, though I only used one hollowed out CD Case, so far two workers have eclosed, i used some sort of instant clay to seal the open side of the CD case, but I can still open and close the CD. So far things seem to be doing well, easy to maintain in my opinion, and its my first colony (:

[dolphinsrockful]

@nanoguy4098 for this ant farm can I use sand instead of soil

[dolphinsrockful]

can I use and Instead of soil??

[nanoguy4098]

If anyone has any questions about caring/keeping ants, or the capture and care or queens, PM me!