5 Reasons Lasius Niger Ants Are Perfect for Beginners
Updated: 1 day ago
By Pat, founder of Best Ants UK | Keeping ants since 1997 | Updated October 2026
In short: The best ant species for beginners in the UK is Lasius niger, the black garden ant. It is native to Britain, it cannot sting, it is happy at normal room temperature and it forgives the mistakes every new keeper makes. Our second choice is Messor barbarus, the harvester ant.
Choosing your first ants is exciting. There are hundreds of species to pick from, but your first colony should be one that is easy to look after and hard to get wrong. After nearly 30 years of helping new keepers, we can tell you which one that is: Lasius niger, the humble black garden ant you see in every British garden.
Think about getting your driving licence and choosing your first car. Would you pick a Ferrari, even if you could afford one? Probably not. It is expensive, hard to handle and one small mistake can end badly. Exotic ants such as Harpegnathos venator, the Primitive Jumping Ant, are the Ferrari of ant keeping: amazing to look at, but not much fun for you or the ants when you are still learning. Lasius niger is the small, easy car that gets you there every time.
This guide explains the five reasons Lasius niger make the perfect first ants, then walks you through everything you need to know, step by step, in plain English. You do not need to remember it all on day one. Read the first part now, and come back to the rest as your colony grows.
Lasius niger at a glance
Common name: black garden ant
Native to the UK: yes
Can it sting? No. Its bite is too weak to feel
Best for: complete beginners, families and schools
Room temperature: 20–25°C (normal UK home temperature)
Food: a tiny drop of protein jelly and organic ant honey, twice a week
Water: a few drops in the nest once a week (mineral, distilled or purified water only)
Egg to new worker: about 6–8 weeks
How long the queen lives: up to 28 years and 9 months (the record)
How long workers live: usually about a year, some over 2 years
Care time: about five minutes a week
Difficulty: easy
Reason 1 | Lasius niger are easy to look after
Lasius niger are one of the easiest ants in the world to keep. They don't need special food, special heating or complicated equipment. That makes them wonderful teachers for anyone new to ant keeping.
Simple food
Ants need two kinds of food, just like us:
Protein, which helps the queen lay eggs and the babies grow. We use protein jelly.
Sugar, which gives the workers energy. We use organic ant honey.
Feed them twice a week: protein jelly on one day and honey on another, for example, Monday and Thursday. For a small colony of about 50 workers, each portion is no bigger than a grain of rice. That is all. One syringe of protein jelly lasts a small colony about two months, and the honey in our kits lasts about six months.
Happy at room temperature
Lasius niger like the same temperature you do: 20–25°C. A normal UK home is perfect for most of the year, so there is no need to buy heating. They will not complain about a bit of extra warmth, but they don't need it.
Very little equipment
At the start, your ants live in the clear plastic test tube they arrive in. The tube has water at one end, held back by a cotton plug, so the ants always have something to drink and the air inside stays nicely damp. When the colony is big enough, you connect that tube to an ant farm. An ant farm has two parts:
The nest: the dark, damp home where the queen lives and the babies are raised
The outworld: the open feeding area where the workers come out to collect food
That is everything you need.
Reason 2 | You can watch the colony grow
Watching a colony grow from one queen into a busy family is the best part of keeping ants. With Lasius niger, it happens at just the right speed for beginners: fast enough to see real changes, slow enough to understand what is going on.
From egg to ant in 6–8 weeks
Every ant goes through four stages:
Egg: tiny, white and sticky. Hatches in about 10–12 days.
Larva: a little white grub that the workers feed. Grows for about 10–14 days.
Pupa (cocoon): the larva spins a cocoon and changes inside it, for about 10–24 days.
Adult worker: a brand-new ant climbs out, pale at first, then darker within a day.
Together, these baby stages are called the brood. From egg to adult takes about 6–8 weeks in a warm room (20–26°C) and a bit longer when it is cooler.
The first workers are tiny
The queen's very first workers are called nanitics. They are only a third to half the size of normal workers, because the queen raised them all by herself, with no help and no food from outside. Don't worry, nothing is wrong. Once the nanitics start collecting food, every new generation grows bigger and stronger.
How big will my colony get?
A young colony grows step by step:
First, a few tiny nanitics appear
The colony usually reaches 5–30 workers before its first winter
In spring it roughly doubles, to 10–40 workers
Once it passes about 50 workers, it grows much faster, because more workers bring in more food and the queen lays more eggs
In the wild, a big old colony can have 10,000 workers or more. At home, growth is slow and steady, which makes it easy to manage. Most keepers see a real difference within about a year.
How long do they live?
Lasius niger live a very long time for insects:
The first nanitics live around 3–6 months
Later workers usually live about a year, and in our own colonies some have reached 2 years and 2 months
The queen is the champion. A black garden ant queen holds one of the longest lifespans ever recorded for an insect: 28 years and 9 months in a laboratory
A healthy colony can be part of the family for many years.
Reason 3 | Lasius niger forgive beginner mistakes
Every new keeper gets something wrong at the start. That's normal. What matters is choosing ants that can cope, and Lasius niger are true survivors. They live everywhere, from woodland to city pavements, and they handle ups and downs well.
They can go without food for weeks
A Lasius niger colony can survive up to a month without food and water in the summer, and up to six months during its winter rest. So if you forget a feed, or go on a two-week family holiday, your ants will be fine. Just water the nest before you go and take out any old food so nothing goes mouldy.
They are happy in a wide range of conditions
They do well at normal room temperature, in town or country, in small nests or big ones. They don't need perfect conditions to survive. They just need stable ones.
Patience beats everything
The biggest mistake beginners make is not forgetting to feed. It is checking too often. Every time you lift the cover, shine a torch or move the ant farm, the queen gets stressed, and a stressed queen can stop laying eggs. Lasius niger are forgiving, but they still do best when you leave them in peace. A quick look once a week is plenty.
Reason 4 | Lasius niger are safe and gentle
They cannot sting
Black garden ants have no sting at all. They do have tiny jaws, but their bite is too weak to feel on human skin. That makes them one of the safest pets a child can watch up close, at home or in the classroom.
They are calm and peaceful
Lasius niger are not aggressive. You will see them quietly getting on with their jobs: collecting food, looking after the eggs and babies, and cleaning the nest. Every ant has a job, and they work together as a team. They will stand guard if their home is disturbed, but they are never a danger to people.
They are naturally quiet ants
Lasius niger are not the busiest ants to watch. They often sit still for long periods inside the nest and only come out when they are hungry. That is completely normal for this species, so don't worry if they look sleepy. If you want ants that are always on the move, see Messor barbarus below.
Reason 5 | Lasius niger are native to the UK
Black garden ants belong in Britain. They live under paving stones, in lawns, flowerpots and garden walls all over the country. Keeping a native species means you are learning about the wildlife right outside your door, not an exotic animal from the other side of the world. It also means our British climate suits them perfectly.
Every summer, on warm and humid days, thousands of winged ants fly out of their nests to mate. People call it flying ant day. Each mated queen then lands, drops her wings and starts a brand-new colony on her own. Your queen started her life exactly like that.
What are the best ant species for beginners in the UK?
Here are the ants we recommend for first-time keepers, in order:
Lasius niger (black garden ant): the best first ant. Native, safe, cheap to feed and very forgiving. Perfect for children and complete beginners.
Messor barbarus (harvester ant): the best second choice, and our favourite for ant farms that are full of action. Bigger, busy ants that collect and store seeds and are always out in the feeding area once the colony grows. They like it a little warmer, 24–26°C. Our Angie Ant Farm Starter Kit has everything you need.
Lasius flavus (yellow meadow ant): small, gentle, orange-brown native ants that live mostly underground. Great for patient keepers.
Myrmica rubra (red ant): native and interesting, but it can give a mild sting, so it is better for teenagers and adults than for young children.
If you are not sure, start with Lasius niger. You can always add a second colony later.
Your first week | Step by step
When your ants arrive, follow these five simple steps:
Leave the parcel closed for 5 hours at room temperature. This lets the ants slowly get used to the temperature in your home. Opening it straight away can shock them and make them unwell. This is the most important step.
Check the queen. After the journey she may sit very still and look lifeless. If her legs or antennae (feelers) move, she is fine. Almost all queens are back to normal within 2–3 days.
Leave the test tube in its tin foil for 4–5 days. Put it somewhere quiet at room temperature. Don't feed them, and don't keep checking. One quick look after 24 hours, in the evening, is fine. Don't remove the small black divider inside the tube; it has a hole, and the ants walk through it easily.
Set up your ant farm during those days, and water the nest (see below). The nest needs at least 2 days to soak up the water before the ants move in.
Connect the test tube to the nest after 4–5 days, keeping the tin foil on. Watch our ant farm setup video to see exactly how.
No food is needed for the first two weeks. The test tube already has plenty in it.
If the queen is lying on her back and not moving at all the day after she arrives, send us a short video through the contact form on our website and we will help straight away under our live arrival guarantee.
How the ants move into the nest
Your ants won't move from the test tube into the nest straight away, and that's normal. Here is the simple trick we use, called the tinfoil method:
Keep the tin foil on the test tube for 14 days after you connect it.
Then slide the foil back by just 1mm every day, so the tube slowly becomes lighter.
The ants prefer the dark, damp nest, so as the tube gets brighter, they move in.
If they haven't moved 2 days after the tube is fully uncovered, put the foil back on, wait another 14 days and try again.
Moving in can take a few days or a few months. It cannot be rushed. Once they have moved, leave the old tube connected for another 14 days, in case any babies were left behind.
A small colony is happiest in a small space. Wait until the queen has at least 10 workers, and ideally 15 or more, before moving her into an ant farm. Too much space too soon can make the workers leave the queen behind.
Free Download | First-Year Ant-Keeping Checklist
Everything a beginner needs for the first twelve months on four printable pages: a month-by-month timeline from catching your queen to the first winter, care at a glance, a feeding quick card and the five mistakes that lose colonies. No sign-up, no basket, no catch.
Download the free checklist (PDF) or read more on our free checklist page.
Feeding made simple
What: protein jelly and organic ant honey. A tiny piece of banana, or a peeled grape, makes a nice treat now and then.
How much: no bigger than a grain of rice each, for a colony of about 50 workers. A little more as the colony grows.
How often: twice a week, protein one day and honey another.
Where: in the outworld (feeding area) only, on a small piece of tin foil. Never inside the nest. The one exception is a queen still living in her test tube; see below.
Clean up: take out any leftovers after 2 days so they don't go mouldy.
Storing: keep the protein jelly in the fridge (the jelly, never the ants!).
Not sure how much is a "grain of rice"? Watch our protein jelly feeding video.
Feeding a queen in her test tube
If your queen is still on her own in the test tube, or has only eggs and no workers yet, she cannot come out to the feeding area. So the food goes to her instead. She does not strictly need it, because a Lasius niger queen can raise her first workers on the energy stored in her body. But we feed ours, because a fed queen is much stronger and her babies grow about 30% faster.
Here is how, once a week:
Tear off a tiny, flat piece of tin foil.
Put a drop of protein jelly on it, no bigger than half a grain of rice.
Gently take out the dry cotton stopper (the one at the open end, never the one holding back the water).
Slide the foil inside the tube, right next to the cotton stopper, well away from the water.
Put the stopper back. Keep the tube flat the whole time.
Leave the foil there until next week, then swap it for a fresh piece.
That's it. Work slowly and calmly, and cover the tube with its tin foil again when you have finished.
About live insects: in the wild, black garden ants also eat small insects. If you want to give them a mealworm, cricket or locust as an extra, boil it for 10–15 seconds first, cut it in half and serve it on tin foil. Shop-bought live insects almost always carry tiny mites that can kill a whole colony, and boiling gets rid of them.
Watering made simple
The nest needs to stay damp inside, about 75–85% humidity, so the queen and babies don't dry out. The outworld stays dry. Here is how to water the nest, once a week:
Use mineral, distilled or purified water only. Never use tap water or rainwater, even boiled, because it can cause mould.
Use the pipette (small dropper) that comes with your ant farm.
Drip the water slowly, a few drops at a time, into the nest's watering hole.
Stop as soon as you see 1–2 drops appear inside the nest. That means it is done. More than that is too much.
Water a little more in summer and a little less in winter. If you see lots of water drops running down the clear lid, you have used too much, so use less next time. If your ant farm has a built-in meter, like the Lucas kit, you can check the humidity reading too.
Where to put your ant farm
Ants need normal daylight to know when it is day and night, but never direct sunlight. Pick a steady spot at room temperature and keep it away from:
Windows and sunny spots
Radiators and heaters
TVs, speakers and music
Washing machines and anything that shakes
The kitchen and strong smells
Why no sunlight? The sun shining on the clear lid works like a greenhouse. It can heat the nest by 5°C in just five minutes, which can make the ants very ill.
Why no noise or shaking? Imagine living in a quiet, dark room, and several times a day a giant lifts off your roof, shines a bright light in your eyes and shakes your whole house. You wouldn't feel very safe! That is how ants feel next to a loud TV, or when the cover is lifted every hour.
Stopping escapes
Paint a band of PTFE Fluon, about 1 inch (2.5cm) wide, around the inside top edge of the outworld. It makes the surface so slippery that ants cannot climb it, so they can't escape when you open the lid to feed them. Top it up every 2–3 months. Watch how to apply PTFE Fluon.
What happens in winter?
In the wild, Lasius niger rest through the winter, from about November to March. Indoors, you may notice they eat less and the queen lays fewer eggs. That's normal.
A winter rest (hibernation) is optional. We don't hibernate our queens in their first year, and colonies kept at room temperature do just as well. If you'd like to try it when your colony is older, cool it down very slowly to around 10°C, never below 8°C, and never put it in a fridge. Our full care guide explains exactly how.
10 beginner mistakes to avoid
Opening the parcel straight away instead of waiting 5 hours
Checking the ants every day
Putting the ant farm in direct sunlight
Using tap water or rainwater
Pouring in too much water
Feeding too much, or feeding inside the nest
Leaving old food in the outworld for more than 2 days
Moving a tiny colony into a big ant farm too early
Putting the ants in a fridge
Using a gel farm or a cheap plastic ant kit
Choosing your first ant farm
Start small. A small nest is easier to keep damp, easier to watch, and makes a young colony feel safe.
Lucas Ant Farm Starter Kit: our top pick for Lasius niger, and the kit families and schools choose most. It includes the A7 PLUS ant farm with a built-in temperature and humidity meter, a Lasius niger colony and ant food. Everything in one box, nothing else to buy.
Claire Complete Ant Farm Starter Kit: an all-in-one nest and feeding area with a Lasius niger colony (a queen and 15–20 workers) and protein jelly.
A7 PLUS Ant Farm Kit: already have your ants? This is the same ant farm as Lucas, without the colony.
Why not a cheap ant farm? Gel farms and cheap plastic kits are made for watching a few worker ants for a week or two, not for keeping a queen. They have no proper way to keep the nest damp, and the queen sits in the light all day. She gets stressed, stops laying eggs, and the colony fails. Gel farms also go mouldy quickly. A proper ant farm saves your colony, your money and a very disappointed child.
Is this normal? Quick answers
My ants are not moving. Normal. Lasius niger are quiet ants and often sit still, especially after delivery.
The queen keeps carrying her eggs around. Normal. She does it when she is disturbed. Cover her up and leave her alone.
The eggs seem to disappear and come back. Normal. The ants move them around the nest.
The first workers are tiny. Normal. Those are nanitics. The next ones will be bigger.
The ants won't leave the test tube. Normal. Use the tinfoil method and be patient.
The whole colony moved back into the test tube. The nest is too dry. Water it until 1–2 drops appear inside.
The queen has stopped laying. Usually stress, cold or winter. Keep things calm and steady, offer protein jelly and give her time.
For parents and teachers
Lasius niger are one of the best ways to bring nature into a home or classroom. Children learn about life cycles, teamwork, responsibility and patience, and they see it happen with their own eyes.
A few tips:
An adult should set up the ant farm and help with feeding and watering.
Give your child one small job, like choosing feeding day or checking the ants on a Sunday evening.
Keep a simple diary: date, number of workers, eggs seen. It's surprising how fast it fills up.
Remind children that ants are not toys. Looking is great; tapping, shaking and opening the nest are not.
Conclusion
Lasius niger open the door to one of the most fascinating hobbies in the world. They are safe, simple, forgiving and native to Britain, and they reward a little patience with years of discovery. Many of our customers started with one small colony of black garden ants and never looked back.
Ready to start? The Lucas Ant Farm Starter Kit gives you everything in one box. When you want the full details, from watering to winter rest, read our Lasius niger care guide.
Want all of this on one printable checklist? Download our free First-Year Ant-Keeping Checklist (PDF), no sign-up needed.
FAQs
What is the best ant species for beginners in the UK?
Lasius niger, the black garden ant. It is native, safe, cheap to feed and very forgiving. Messor barbarus is the best second choice.
Why are Lasius niger recommended for beginners?
They are easy to look after, grow at a pace you can watch, survive common mistakes, cannot sting and are happy at normal room temperature.
Are Lasius niger safe for children?
Yes. They cannot sting and their bite is too weak to feel. An adult should set up the ant farm and help with feeding.
Are Lasius niger safe to handle?
They are safe, but ants are for watching, not handling. Picking them up can hurt them, and the queen should never be touched.
How much care do Lasius niger need?
About five minutes a week. Feed twice a week, water the nest once a week and leave them in peace the rest of the time.
What do Lasius niger eat?
Protein jelly for protein and organic ant honey for energy, twice a week. A tiny piece of banana or peeled grape makes a treat.
How often should I feed Lasius niger?
Twice a week, protein one day and honey another. Each portion should be no bigger than a grain of rice for a colony of about 50 workers.
What water should I use?
Mineral, distilled or purified water only. Never tap water or rainwater.
What temperature do Lasius niger need?
20–25°C. A normal UK home is fine for most of the year. Heating is only worth thinking about if the room drops below 15–17°C in winter.
What humidity do Lasius niger need?
About 75–85% inside the nest. The outworld (feeding area) should stay dry.
How quickly do Lasius niger colonies grow?
Each new worker takes about 6–8 weeks from egg to adult. Colonies usually reach 5–30 workers before their first winter, then grow much faster once they pass about 50 workers.
How long do Lasius niger live?
Workers usually live about a year, and some over 2 years. The queen can live for decades: the record is 28 years and 9 months.
How long can Lasius niger survive without food and water?
Up to one month in the active season and up to six months during their winter rest.
When should I move my ants into an ant farm?
When the queen has at least 10 workers, ideally 15 or more. Keep the test tube connected and let them move in by themselves.
Why won't my ants move into the nest?
sually the nest is too dry or too cold, or they simply need more time. Use the tinfoil method and be patient. It can take a few months.
Do Lasius niger need to hibernate?
No, it is optional. We don't hibernate queens in their first year. Never put ants in a fridge.
Can I keep two queens together?
No. Queens usually fight once the first workers appear. Keep one queen per colony.
Can I go on holiday?
Yes. Water the nest before you go and remove old food. Your ants can easily manage two weeks on their own.
What is the best ant farm for Lasius niger?
A small nest with a good humidity system. Our top pick is the Lucas Ant Farm Starter Kit, which comes with the A7 PLUS ant farm, a built-in meter, a Lasius niger colony and ant food.
Where can I buy Lasius niger in the UK?
From Best Ants UK. We have sold live ants since 1997 and ship across mainland UK with Royal Mail and a live arrival guarantee.
Is your child struggling with calculations? Need a maths tutor online? We recommend Best Maths Tutor.
