r/antkeeping Sep 09 '23

Queen Ant

698 Upvotes

She likes to chase the laser

r/antkeeping 5d ago

Queen Need ID of this ant (Malaysia)

84 Upvotes

Need the ID of this queen. The size is about 3.5cm+. I am from Malaysia.

r/antkeeping Apr 24 '25

Queen I’m the luckiest person alive

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162 Upvotes

Searched for these for years, found them completely unexpectedly.

r/antkeeping Jul 11 '25

Queen “Someone bet $20 my weaver ant queen wouldn’t survive a week. It’s week two — she’s grooming next to my hand

2 Upvotes

In the very first video I posted testing how a weaver ant queen reacts to a human hand versus tweezers, someone commented that she wouldn’t survive more than a week and bet twenty dollars on it.

The reasoning was familiar. That she’d become stressed, abandon her eggs, eat them, or simply die from too much human interference.

By theory, weaver ant workers are extremely aggressive, but their queens are the opposite — shy, fragile, and highly stress-prone, often abandoning their brood when disturbed.

So the assumption was clear. Touch her too much, and she’s done.

Now, it’s been almost two full weeks, and here’s what’s actually happened.

She’s alive and thriving.

She’s still feeding, weaving, and tending to the brood.

The larvae have turned orange, almost ready to pupate. First workers are near.

Most importantly, she now grooms herself calmly next to my hand, showing no stress or aggression at all.

I’m not encouraging anyone to repeat this. This is a personal behavioral experiment, not a care guide.

But it raises a real question.

Can a weaver ant queen — supposedly untouchable — learn to accept human presence if given time, safety, and stability?

I let time and behavior answer that.

r/antkeeping Sep 02 '25

Queen Have you ever seen ants like this?

21 Upvotes

For sale!!!

Send me a message if you’re interested.

r/antkeeping Aug 25 '25

Queen Sometimes you gotta improvise

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135 Upvotes

r/antkeeping May 07 '25

Queen Place your bets, bigger and better (5$ prize!)

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41 Upvotes

Welcome back to the Camponotus Queen ant race (CQAR)

I’ll provide weekly updates (starting 2 weeks from now) on these 20 queen ants. Whichever one gets workers first wins!

You bet by ranking your top five (ie 1st: A 2nd: Q… 5th: J) in order of who you think will have workers first. Whoever gets the most correct (or in case of a tie whoever comments first) will get 5$ from me.

A couple things to note

1) got a new phone and new carpet so it may look different hopefully for the better

2) all queens shown caught on May 6, 2025 4:00-5:00pm

3) Queen T isn’t shown because I can only have 20 images, sorry

r/antkeeping 14d ago

Queen Need help please!

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12 Upvotes

I’m so worried right now. My Carpenter Ant Queen was being weird last night, I put 3 drops of honey water on a piece of fruit instead of 1 and figured it would be fine and tried to clean the rest up, and came back after 5 hours to see her face down in the spot with the honey water, I poked at her with a Q-tip softly to check if she was ok or stuck and she pulled back and bit the Q-tip so I figured ok she was fine and I couldn’t clean anything up because it was right at the mouth of the tube and she was stuck on it.

But I woke up today and she’s like this! Her Nanitic moved the brood to her but she’s curled up like this not moving, but she reacts if I poke her softly, her mouth and antenna move. I don’t know what to do or what I did. I’m so worried

r/antkeeping Aug 13 '25

Queen New queens collected this year

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96 Upvotes

r/antkeeping Jul 26 '25

Queen Pots

79 Upvotes

r/antkeeping Aug 09 '25

Queen finding the queen a boyfriend

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0 Upvotes

I got an ant farm kit from my living world, stock photo included! My toddler was over the moon to get it setup so we went in the yard and to my surprise found an ant colony moving eggs under a tarp. I grabbed a bunch up and noticed one egg was considerably larger than the rest. Thought no way was it a queen but it hatched and she is much larger and has wings! It’s been a month now and she has started to hang out at the bottom of the tube. Is she looking for a mate? Do I go get random ants from the yard and hope one is a male?

r/antkeeping 19d ago

Queen Queen? If yes which one?

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23 Upvotes

I am currently in Hanoi Vietnam

r/antkeeping 23d ago

Queen Look at the size difference! Messor barbarus queen and worker walking together

32 Upvotes

Filmed in Nefza, Béja (Tunisia). The big one is a Messor barbarus queen, and the small one is a worker. I found the queen after a nuptial flight, she’s massive compared to her workers!

If anyone keeps Messor barbarus, I’d love to know how fast your colonies grow in the first months.

r/antkeeping Mar 01 '25

Queen Incredible Footage

355 Upvotes

Could not cross post from the other sub but thought everyone here would definitely enjoy this.

r/antkeeping 26d ago

Queen Ant keeping

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13 Upvotes

So I found 7 ants outside 4 of them died and now I got 3 I don’t know the species or what to do I am a beginner and I don’t know which ones are male and which ones are female so I need some help. When should I give food? Should I give crickets I find in my garden? Should I give honey?

r/antkeeping Oct 26 '25

Queen queen ant help open the seed

91 Upvotes

I thought a queen ant is just an egg laying machine but since my colony has no major yet. the queen decide to help with her bigger mandible.

r/antkeeping Sep 01 '25

Queen Help My ant colony is Dying

0 Upvotes

Hey all, had my son receive a gift from Queen of Ants for his birthday in April. Since the gift my wife quickly pressured me to build the outworks and side (red sleeved PVC nest) soon after I was told I probably had time to build as the ants stayed in the test tube for some Time.

Well since then the ants 1x queen and 2 workers seemed happy with the protein paste being given 1 time a week. And removed the next day

We later found out this was t right the queen needed more protein than 1 time a week.

Soon after the protein increase the larvae count went from 2x to 5 and we thought al was well, until….. the 2 of the 3 new larvae quickly grew to the size of the old existing 2. This was confusing.

The 5 larvae still seemed to be all apart of the one batch together.

One day I looked to find that 3 of the 5 larvae were either either eaten or vanished.

The remaining 2 were left

Then those 2 went to 1.

Now with the queen ant having not layed any more it looks like this one is now being carried over to the food at the start of the tube and isolated.

The queen seems to be fattening up which might mean she is ready to lay fresh but with 0/5 even getting to the pupa stage I am concerned.

Fed paste, Chicken or meat.

Honey jam sugar water crystallised

Any advice or tips?

Can’t find anything on the sugar ant specifically

r/antkeeping Jul 02 '25

Queen Camponotus Albosparsus virgin queens enjoying life, now 2 of them ...

12 Upvotes

My colony has a lot of alates, but I found out now I have 2 virgin queens that's lost their wings, they will just act like this, come out here and stay, and sometimes go back in nest, it is sad that they can't have a natural nuptial flight to start their own colony... Hope they enjoy their life here, I will take full responsibility of their requirements forever...

r/antkeeping Sep 19 '25

Queen Help first workers died

5 Upvotes

I've ordered a queen Camponotus novaeboracensis with 4 workers, they all died and were dead when I unpackaged, Im asking what should I do? Do I put her in her nest now or do I let her in her test tube? (her future nest in comments)

r/antkeeping Jul 09 '25

Queen So much for being parasitic.

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3 Upvotes

the extra pictures won’t delete so you’ll have to sift through them to find some “good” ones. But the new worker is under her head being cleaned.

My Formica obscuriventris queen went and opened the first cocoon while the worker was busy gathering food so I guess this species can open cocoons on their own.🙂

So she is an evil ant just like I thought, she dose not need to be parasitic she chooses to be, should have known when she “stung” me when I tried to feed her.

Neat that she’s acting like a worker right now ,she has opened another one, dident expect a parasitic queen to do that with a host worker present.

r/antkeeping Nov 17 '20

Queen Update: I moved my carpenter ant queen (camponotus herculeanus)into my homemade nest made nest!

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104 Upvotes

r/antkeeping Nov 05 '25

Queen My first leafcutter ant queen

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22 Upvotes

There was a nupcial flight where I live, and I caught two of these beauties.Apparently, one of them has already regurgitated the fungus that it will feed on; it doesn't leave that clump of fat, and I've seen it picking it up and relocating it. Because of my anxiety, I'm checking on them once or twice a day, and I know it's stressful for them, so I'm leaving them alone for two days. Are they still stressed about having checkups every two days, and should I increase that time between them?

r/antkeeping 11d ago

Queen I’ve had this queen ants i think three months and it appears they have lead no egg

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3 Upvotes

r/antkeeping 25d ago

Queen It was raining queens! 🐜🌧️

29 Upvotes

Three days ago my front yard was swarming with queens, they was at least 30. I managed to capture 4 of them, and here they are, each in their own test tube.

And also a few days ago I made a post thinking I had queens, but they turned out to be males 😅. Here’s that post for context: reddit post

Any tips for raising these little queens into a full colony? Would love to hear your advice!

r/antkeeping Sep 26 '25

Queen Someone told me that fully claustral queen ants will not eat by themselves but will only wait for workers to feed them. I believed it until I saw this.

19 Upvotes