ANTS, ANTS, ANTS,
I LOVE ANTS!
How I got my ant farm!
Ant Farm Village--See my ant farm!
Make your own ant farm!
About Ants
Ant Links and Ant Books
 
Rachel and her ant farm
For my fourth birthday I got an ant farm.  My mom set it up.  We tried
to get ants from our backyard but it was too hard to get them plus we
needed big ants and we only found little ants. The ant farm came with a
ticket that you can send off in the mail so we mailed the ticket.  We
waited a long time to get the ants because my birthday is in July and it
is very hot in July.  They couldn't mail the ants while it was still so
hot or they would die.  Finally on September 21 we got a special
envelope in the mail and the ants were in it.  Some of them had died but
most of them were alive.  Mom put them in the refrigerator for a few
minutes.  This helps because it makes them go to sleep and then it is
easier to put them in the ant farm.
It is a lot of fun to have an ant farm!  It is fun watching them make
tunnels and work.  They work all the time!  Always running here and
there.  Don't they ever get tired?
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Can you see the tunnels the ants built?
The ant farm I got for my birthday is an ANT FARM VILLAGE by Uncle
Milton and you can get this at Toys "R" Us.
Uncle Milton will send you the ants and for a small fee you can even
join the ANT FARM CLUB and get an official membership card, a magnifying
glass an ant fun book and some other stuff.
You can contact Uncle Milton by sending a letter to:
Ant Farm Village
Dept. AG
5717 Corsa Avenue
Westlake Village, CA   91362
or by calling (818) 707-0800
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You can also make your own ant farm!
Here is how you do it:
 
*Get a glass jar, drill holes in the lid.
 

*You can put dirt into the jar, then put the ants in it.
 

*Put a little damp sponge into the jar so that the ants can drink water.  If you decide to put water into the jar make sure it is only one or two drops.  They can die if you give them too much water.
 

*Put only a little food into the jar.  Too much food is not good for ants. Try to see what ants are eating before you put them in the jar. Some like seeds.  Others like fruit.  Just a little food will do.  Feed and give them water (using a dropper) every couple of days.
 

*Keep the ants away from too much sunlight.  Remember, they live underground.
 

**MOST IMPORTANT--Never, never mix ants from different colonies.  Pick your ants from the same colony.  If they are from different colonies they will fight and kill each other.

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About Ants
 
Ants work hard like miniature bulldozers.They can lift over twenty times their own weight. 

 

A harvester ant worker carries a particle of sand.
15x magnification.
 
 
Ants communicate by chemicals, by touch, by smell, by sound, and by sight. 
 
Harvester ant workers have a meeting.
12x magnification.
WHAT ABOUT THOSE ANTENNAS? 

Ants use their antennas for a lot of things.  They use them to "talk" to each other, to help them find food and they also touch and  smell with them.  Ants are very clean.  They will use their little legs to clean their antennas. 

TYPES OF ANTS 
In a colony you will see the Queen. She is usually bigger and she lays the eggs.
Those eggs will grow into: 

Workers 
New Queens 
Males 

Workers
All the workers are females.  They are also the ones who protect the colony and will fight.  They are the ones that will dig all of the tunnels in the ant city. 

New Queens 
New Queens have wings.  They won't stay with the colony.  They will fly away and start a colony of their own.  Their wings will fall off and then she will lay her eggs. 

Males 
It's no fun being a male in an ant colony.  They fly away with the new Queens.  After he mates with the Queen, he dies. 
  
DID YOU KNOW? 
Ants have a special scent.  Sort of like perfume.  Their bodies make scented chemicals called pheromones.

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Ant Links and Ant Books
Some good ant websites:
Ants in the Amazon
http://vif27.icair.iac.org.nz//Animals/ants.htm
Ant Archives--has pictures of an ant farm as it develops
http://www.softclin.com/antcam/AntArchives.html
Antcyclopedia--Information on ant colonies
http://www.softclin.com/antcam/AntColony.html
AES Bug Club--for all who love bugs
http://www.ex.ac.uk/bugclub/
Some good ant books we've read:
We have read Ant Cities by Arthur Dorros and The Magic School Bus gets Ants in its Pants published by Scholastic.  These are both great books and the information on this page comes from these two books.
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