(07-26-2012, 06:21 AM)Thor Wrote: If I am not mistaken, most ant workers can only live for 6 months while the queen can live for 3 years. They don't have long life span to begin with. Did they send you a queen ant or just worker ants? Without a queen, the colony can't sustain itself for very long. Ants can eat all kinds of food, they love sweet things.
I had several ant farms when I was younger and loved them. You're right however, they only send you the worker ants. I believe I actually read on the package that it was illegal to sell queen ants per the USDA. I recall the first ant farm I had meeting an untimely end when I fed them just a bit too much honey and they all ended up getting stuck in it and dying. I did better with the next one though and only fed them a small dab of honey occasionally and offset that by feeding them dead or alive small insects. I'd like to get a much larger ant farm some day as I think they're one of the most interesting things to watch.