Last summer I had the fun and privilege of showing some kids in our neighborhood three Ant Kingdoms I created. I say Ant Kingdoms because Ant Farm® is a registered trademark of Uncle Milton Industries, Inc. and I honor and respect such things.
I started by purchasing some plastic jars like these from a local Walmart:
And I grabbed this jar from underneath our kitchen sink:
Then I went to my local garden center and picked up some unfiltered dirt. The kind gentleman at the garden center gave me the dirt for free since I didn't need a whole lot and because it amused him that it was being used to build an ant kingdom.
A special shout out and thank you to Patrick and the Magnolia Garden Village!
Next, I went to get some ants, and I wanted a lot of them. At least 150 for each Ant Kingdom. I captured almost 250 of them here near this park bench for Ant Kingdoms 3a & 3b:
I connected Ant Kingdoms 3a & 3b with tubing. I placed their food in one of the containers so they had to travel through the tubes to get to it.
So I placed all of the ants in the jars of dirt and watched them make themselves at home. The kids and I were thoroughly entertained. Within three days, the ants were making some nice tunnels. The kids got to see what ants do when they go underground. They made tunnels all the way to the bottom of the jars.
This video shows highlights of three months with these ants:
I showed the kids how to feed the ants, give them water, and clean the kingdoms. We put some of their food on little squares I cut from a pack of index cards so it was easy to clean up afterwards. Cleaning the ant kingdoms was quite easy because ants, by nature, are clean creatures. They set up a landfill in one corner of the jar and pile all of the junk they don't want there and take out their garbage every day.
I showed how the ants aerate the soil which helps vegetation grow. These ant kingdoms were set up with dirt and ants only, but before too long some vegetation sprouted up once the ants aerated the soil and I gave them water.
We did some experiments to see what types of things ants like to eat or store underground in their new home. In one clip, towards the end of the video, you will see them hurrying some roasted almond chunks into their home. Fun stuff.
The children were able to witness some key principles of life in action which I reinforced:
*Clean up after yourself
*Be a hard working creature
*Pitch in and do things that are good for you and your entire family
*Teamwork
*Store things up for the future, kind of like a savings account
All of the pictures, videos and artwork contained in this post were created by me.
I plan to get involved in some summer camps for kids as the camps like to get the kids involved in nature. I will also have a book coming out soon that shows how to do all of this ant keeping step-by-step.