Over the past few years, due to large social media accounts such as LightsCameraAnts and AntsCanada, the antkeeping hobby has grown exponentially. This is great news! It also means, however, that there are many new antkeepers. One of the biggest problems with new antkeepers is the struggle to get their colonies to grow. Sometimes, colonies grow, but they don't grow very fast. Other times, the colonies inexplicably stop growing.
When comparing their colonies to more seasoned antkeepers, these new hobbyists may be discouraged and seek answers. This post includes () tips to help you grow a captive ant colony, so that YOUR colony can grow big and healthy like the colonies you see on YouTube or chat groups and forums!
Calibrate their nest temperature
Heating is one of the most overlooked parts of antkeeping. Similar to reptiles, the VAST majority of ants need extra heating and cannot grow to their full potential at room temperature. Sometimes, colonies kept at room temperature will even stop growth overall and go into hibernation. A harvester ant colony from the desert, for example, would go into diapause (hibernation) at room temperature because room temperature mimics the conditions when food is scarce, so all energy used foraging would be wasted.
Your colony should have at least part of the nest kept warm. For most ants, around 80 degrees Fahrenheit is a fair temperature for growth. However, some ants, such as certain species of Pogonomyrmex, will literally go into hibernation if kept at that temperature! They prefer most of the nest to be above 85 degrees for growth. It is recommended that part of the nest is heated, and the rest is cooler. We call this a 'heating gradient'.
But if the ants prefer warmer temperatures, why shouldn't you simply heat the entire nest to 85 degrees and call it good? What use is a heating gradient? Well, there's two main reasons for a heating gradient. The first is that the ants know better than you what they want! Allowing the ants to choose their preferred temperature is the best thing you could do. Second, we know that some stages of developing ants (eggs and younger larvae) prefer cooler areas, while some (older larvae and pupae) prefer warmer areas for incubation. Studies have shown that in some species, egg mortality significantly increases when the eggs are kept warmer. There must be a cooler area for the eggs/larvae, and a warmer area for the pupae. The queen may also have different preferences for egg-laying conditions than the rest of the colony.
Some species, when kept very warm, will have extremely fast egg-worker cycles. Pheidole obtusospinosa can get workers within 18 days of being caught if heated efficiently. If you're heating your colony correctly, you could cut in half their development time.
Debatably, the best method of heating is incubation. We briefly mention how to create an incubator in our main guide here. An incubator can be created for less than $70 using a heat pad, reptile temperature controller, and an old styrofoam cooler. The only downside to incubation is that it's harder to create a sufficient gradient with a cooler area. However, note that wherever evaporation is occurring, it is bound to be slightly cooler than the surrounding area.
Other methods of heating would be using heat cables or reptile heating mats. Simply run the cable along part of the nest or place the heating pad beneath part of the nest, and make sure there's a sufficient gradient. If your ants are still in a test tube, make sure to only heat the front of the test tube, near the entrance. Heating too close to the water reservoir could cause floods, and heating efficiently near the entrance will create the perfect gradient.
Each species has different temperature needs. If you got your ants from us, you'll be able to check your species info page and see exactly what we recommend their heated temperature be. Note that overheating can COOK your ants, so it's important that you're careful and a gradient is provided!
It's always better to overfeed than underfeed
One of the most common problems with growing colonies for beginners is underfeeding. With young colonies in a test tube, it can be difficult to know just how much they're eating of what you give them. At this stage, I recommend feeding the ants on pieces of tinfoil. That way, once it's been 24 hours, you can remove the food with little difficulty.
If an ant colony was a plant, protein would be its water. Insect protein is vital for growing an ant colony. It is ALWAYS better to give too much protein than too little protein! Giving more food than the colony can take signals to the queen that there is an abundance, and to make up for this, she may lay more eggs. This results in larger generations of workers which can speed up your colony's growth!
If your ant colony is large enough that they have an outworld and are regularly foraging, we recommend feeding them as much protein as they will physically take. Once they start rejecting protein, you know they're well-fed. If you're doing this constantly, your colony will grow exponentially compared to one that was only fed a set amount of food.
It's important to make sure you're removing old food, though. Sometimes grain mites can be hidden among feeder insects, and a buildup of uneaten protein is ripe ground for them to explode in population. Mold growth can also be deadly for a colony, so you don't want to let that occur! I recommend cleaning out old food if the ants haven't eaten from it in 24 hours.
Fruit flies are one of the best sources of protein for ants, especially smaller species. Most ants prefer protein that they can easily carry from the outworld to the larvae to be eaten. While some ants feed via trophallaxis (mouth-to-mouth) to the larvae, others need to place the food on the larvae pile to be eaten directly. Ants such as Lasius, Myrmecocystus, and Novomessor are good examples of ants that have larvae which need to eat direct pieces of protein.
Fruit flies are extremely useful as they're small enough to be carried by just about any ant, and packed full of protein. They are ant super-food.
Though protein is what makes the colony grow, carbohydrates is what keeps it alive. For harvester ants, workers need to be able to get carbohydrates from seeds to stay alive. Harvester ants are pretty easy because they'll stockpile dry seeds in the nest for later, and all you have to do is make sure there's plenty of un-opened seeds stored.
For most ant species, the workers need liquid sugars. This can be homemade in the form of sugar-water or honey-water. Make sure to always provide as much sugars as the ants will take, just like protein. Ants cannot live off of only sugars, and most commonly kept ants can't live off of only protein. They need both.
Sunburst Ant Nectar is a good shelf-stable alternative to honey-water or sugar-water. It is also the perfect mix to be used for liquid feeders, which we will now explain.
A liquid feeder is useful for providing your colony sufficient liquid sugars. It's similar to a sipper used with hamsters at the pet store! It allows the ants to drink as much sugar as they want, 24/7. They're refillable and make providing the ants sugar super easy.
You'll know your colony is underfed if the brood pile isn't larger than the previous generation. Simply always feed as much as the ants will take, frequently (every day or every 2-3 days ideally) and your ants will grow amazingly, provided they're heated correctly as well.
Check the nest humidity
Certain species need very humid environments for growth and maintenance. This is where it's important to do research! If you're keeping a species that in the wild, would have lots of humidity or live in a wet environment, it's likely they'd need humidity more than other species of ants. Ants from Florida, for example, prefer much higher humidity than ants from Arizona, as Florida is very humid and Arizona isn't. It's also worth noting that smaller ants are more prone to desiccating quickly, and therefore prefer more humid nests.
In general, you always want to make sure the nest you have your ants in is ideal for them! Read their cues. Nesting as far as possible from the heat source? Maybe it's too hot. Are they crowded near the most humid part of the nest? Maybe they need more moisture. Is the brood pile in your nest small? They need more food!
So, combining these 3 tips should, with time and consistency, make your ant colony grow like wildfire! Just make sure to be safe, be responsible, and have fun with your ants!
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