My Living Ant World – 30 Years of Ant Keeping by Best Ants UK
- Nov 12, 2024
- 15 min read
Updated: May 27
"Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise!"
— King Solomon, Book of Proverbs
Best Ants UK is a UK-based ant keeping specialist with hands-on experience dating back to 1997. We supply live queen ants, ant colonies, ant farm kits, formicariums, ant food and ant keeping guides across the UK, with a live arrival guarantee and first-hand care knowledge from thousands of queen ants and colonies.
Our team of five experienced ant keepers raises, checks, feeds and packs live ant colonies carefully before dispatch. Every member of the Best Ants UK team has a clear role, from colony care and feeding to ant farm design, packing, customer support and educational ant keeping guidance.
Humanity has been fascinated by ants for thousands of years, and once you observe a real queen ant colony up close, it is easy to understand why. Best Ants UK exists to help beginners, families, schools and experienced keepers enjoy ant keeping safely, responsibly and successfully.
We are raising most of our ant colonies from healthy and fertile queens ourselves, and we guarantee live queen arrival. We always check and feed your ants before dispatch. We take every care to ensure live goods are packaged safely and securely. We endeavour to provide the lowest possible risk in transit. At our company, we are proud to offer a CO2-neutral shipping service. This initiative aligns with our commitment to environmental sustainability and reducing our carbon footprint. Last but not least, our products and packaging are fully recyclable and environmentally friendly.
Why Best Ants UK Is One of the UK’s Most Trusted Ant Keeping Suppliers
Best Ants UK is a UK specialist in live queen ants, ant colonies, ant farm kits, formicariums, ant food and ant keeping supplies. Our team of five experienced ant keepers has been keeping ants since 1997, giving us nearly 30 years of hands-on experience with live ant colonies.
Our ant keeping journey began in 1997, and we started selling live ants and ant keeping supplies online in 2003. Since then, Best Ants UK has helped over 22,800 customers start and enjoy ant keeping safely, responsibly and successfully.
Every live colony we dispatch is checked, fed and packed carefully before posting. We offer a live arrival guarantee and focus on healthy queens, safe delivery, beginner-friendly support and honest ant keeping advice based on real experience, not guesswork.
Our handmade ant farms and formicariums are designed for live queen ant colonies, not toy displays. Every setup is tested carefully before being offered to customers, with a focus on safety, visibility, humidity control, colony growth and long-term ant health.
We also believe responsible ant keeping matters. That is why Best Ants UK ships live ants only within the UK. Although we receive interest from customers in the USA, Canada, Japan, Australia, Singapore and across Europe, we do not ship live ants abroad because live animal welfare, customs delays, invasive species risks and local ecosystems must come first.
Best Ants UK in the Press
Pat Stanchev of Best Ants UK has been mentioned by national media, including The Guardian, BBC and The Times, for expert insight into ant keeping, the live ant trade, ethical sourcing and the growing interest in ant farms as a calming and educational hobby.
The Guardian
The Guardian mentioned Best Ants UK in coverage about the global trade in exotic ants, including ethical sourcing, responsible ant keeping and avoiding illegal wild collection.
BBC
The BBC quoted Pat Stanchev / Best Ants UK in coverage about rare and highly sought-after ant species, including why unusual ants attract collectors and why responsible ant keeping matters.
The Times
The Times quoted Best Ants UK on the rise of ant keeping as a low-cost, calming, and educational hobby, especially as more people discovered it during and after COVID.
These national media mentions reflect what Best Ants UK has always stood for: nearly 30 years of real ant-keeping experience, healthy, live queen ant colonies, ethical UK-only live ant shipping, handmade ant farms, and honest, beginner-friendly education.
Every single ant farm we offer goes through a very strict and careful process, from the idea at the beginning sketched on paper (sometimes on a napkin in the pub), the design process itself, including 3D modelling and then the testing period, which lasts from one and a half to three years.
Like most of you, I, Pat, founder of Best Ants UK, dived into the fascinating world of ants with the common ant species, Lasius niger, Lasius flavus, and Fire ants at first, and a few months after, I went for Messor barbarus.
About a year later, back in 2003, I decided to get a Formica rufa, aka Red wood ant queen ant, as I was amazed by their nest structure and how fast the workers were. Also, did you know that the Formica Rufa queen parasitises the nest of other ants to start her new colony? I achieved very decent results, managing to grow a huge colony of these incredible insects.
Best Ants UK ant farms are often part of STEM science projects in schools and universities across the United Kingdom and Europe. All ant farms come with a learning guide that provides fascinating facts about ant biology and behaviour.
Interesting Ant Species for Ant-keeping
There are more than thirteen thousand ant species. I can admit that my team and I have been keeping and selling more than 300 of them over the years, including harvester ants, carpenter ants, crazy ants, army ants, weaver ants, leafcutter ants, bullet ants, marauder ants and many more. That's why we named the Best Ants UK Blog: Welcome to My Living Ant World.
Once you understand the nature of these unique creatures, it's a simple and joyful journey, keeping any ant species, no matter the requirements towards their feeding, habitat, etc. Everything is possible, indeed.
The oldest Messor barbarus queen we are still looking after is now 18 years old and thriving. I started that colony to prove to my friends that the harvester ants can survive without live food, so I never fed them anything but mite-free seeds and sweets occasionally. I have never hibernated them as well, that was another part of the bet I did make with a few of my ant fellas. I keep them in my office, where the temperature is not too different from your house temperature, between 18 and 26 degrees Celsius during the summer and between 15 and 22 degrees Celsius during the winter months.
What are the most interesting ant species we've looked after and whether we recommend them or not?
Well, there are hundreds of them. I will put them in a few categories, so let's begin. It's our pleasure to share some of the tips and secrets we've learned over the years.
1. What are the most common species for a beginner ant keeper?
2. What are the most interesting ant species?
3. What are the most dangerous ant species?
4. What are the most difficult ant species to keep?
5. What are the fastest-growing ant species?
6. What are the most beautiful ant species?
7. What are the most expensive ant species?
1. What are the most common species for a beginner ant keeper?
The most common species for a beginner ant keeper are Lasius niger (black garden ant), Lasius flavus (Yellow Meadow Ant), Myrmica rubra (European fire ant) and Messor barbarus (Harvester Ant).
Lasius niger, Lasius flavus, and Myrmica rubra are native to the UK, but not Messor barbarus. Please note that we do not recommend Myrmica rubra (European fire ant) for children under 10, as they sting. It's not a big deal, though; it feels like a stinging nettle, and they are only doing that if you endanger them.
Keeping any of these ants is a valuable opportunity to gain knowledge for the future.
2. What is the most interesting ant species?
That is a tricky one — a bit like asking someone their favourite hair colour! Everyone has different tastes.
Many people in the hobby gravitate towards Yellow Crazy Ants (Anoplolepis gracilipes), largely thanks to their popularity on social media. We appreciate everything that has been done to bring this hobby to a wider audience — genuinely.
Personally, though, I kept Anoplolepis gracilipes for about a year, and they were not quite my thing. The workers are small — between 4 and 5mm — with a queen reaching around 11 to 12mm. They were fast and constantly on the move, but after a while, there was not a great deal more to observe. For me, the excitement faded fairly quickly.
Another species that gets a lot of attention is the Bullet Ant (Paraponera clavata). These are genuinely impressive creatures — the workers are enormous, reaching up to 30mm, which is almost the same size as the queen herself.
They also hold a rather notorious record: the most painful insect sting in the world. Entomologist Justin Schmidt, who created the Schmidt Pain Index, described it as pure, intense, brilliant pain — similar to walking over burning coals with a nail driven into your heel. And if that is not enough, the pain can last up to 24 hours.
Keep reading — I have a personal story about these that you will not forget.
The Odontomachus ants, aka trap-jaw ants, should be mentioned too.
These ants have the second-fastest-moving predatory appendages within the whole animal kingdom, after the Mystrium camillae, aka Dracula ants. One study of Odontomachus Bauri recorded peak speeds up to 230 km/h (143 mph), with the jaws closing within just 130 microseconds on average.
I had a large colony of these and kept them for one year, but they were interesting for the first two or three weeks. Nothing special afterwards.
Find out more about Dracula Ants: Dracula Ants: The Fastest Animal on Earth and Other Fascinating Facts
A few words about the leafcutter ants. No matter the genera, Atta and Acromyrmex, are pretty similar to look after when it comes to climate requirements.
The Acromyrmex is much smaller in size than the Atta queen, though. Apart from their ultra-high requirements towards climate and ant farms, another problem with leaf-cutters, especially Atta, is that the colony needs to reach a sustainable size (more than 1000 workers) and have a safe-sized fungus garden to survive for a long period, or it will fail. The leafcutter ants' colony can be limited easily in captivity by reducing the food you provide them.
Well, it's time for my favourite ant species, the Oecophylla smaragdina, aka Asian weaver ants.
They make nests in trees. How? They stitch the leaves together using silk produced by their larvae. Looking at them doing that is the most calming process I have ever seen, and it can replace any professional psychologist you might need at some point in your stressful life. I do believe Oecophylla Smaragdina is one of my two favourite ant species when it comes to beauty, so find out more about them in the 6th question's answer.
3. What are the most dangerous ant species?
The Paraponera clavata, aka bullet ants.
I was keeping a decent colony which reached about 80-100 workers for 11 months, which was an achievement because the worker's ant lifespan is not more than three months in their natural habitat and about 60-80 days in my ant farm. Honestly, this was my third attempt to keep that species, finally successful. Thanks to Robert, a close friend of mine who lived in Cambodia back then and was kind enough to bring me such a dangerous ant species three times, risking his life as he loves to say over and over again until today. I started my third try with a queen and 11 workers.
Their nest structure is so complicated that I had to combine 3 different-sized aquariums, a nest made of drilled grapevine wood filled with oak sawdust at the base, and lots of advanced technology, including digital temperature and humidity controllers, handmade silicone wall and bottom kanthal heaters, a mini fog machine, and other gadgets to succeed. They love sweets, no matter organic honey, fruits, or locusts.
What I learned about these ants is that they are not aggressive and will never attack and sting you unless you provoke them to do so. You have to squish them in between your fingers to death to make them sting you. I did try this with a pair of thick silicone gloves, not like the Mawé Warriors.
The only thing I was not happy with was that they are nocturnal ants that start foraging after dusk. Anyway, I kept them in my ant room at home, and I had to get rid of them because my wife found one escaped ant on her neck, waking up one morning.
My ant room was next to our bedroom. I have no clue how this ant escaped, but no one got hurt, neither my wife nor the ant, so that story has a happy ending.
4. What are the most difficult ant species to keep?
These are Harpegnathos venator along with their Australian "cousins" Myrmecia Species aka Bull (Bullgod or Jack jumper) Ants and Carebara diversa aka East Indian harvesting ant or marauder ant.
Harpegnathos venator ants have very high demands on conditions such as nutrition, temperature and humidity, the same and even higher demands on the Carebara diversa ant colony.
An interesting fact about the Harpegnathos venator is that Gamergates are present, meaning that every ant could be a queen. Feed them small crickets, cockroaches and flies. Once they get their insect prey, they eat purely on the hemolymph, so do not give them sweets at all, as they do not need any.
Knowing they are Gamergates means some worker ants have spermathecae (can store sperm) and can attract males from outside the colony, then lay eggs and in general act like a queen and can reproduce sexually. The biggest problem with starting with that species is that once someone from China sends the colony here to the UK. The package stays inside a plane's luggage section for 10 or more hours in temperatures so low that the ants barely survive the trip, the stored sperm dies so none of the ants, no matter if they are currently a queen or not, can lay eggs any more. So even if you succeed with their high demands on conditions, in 90% of the cases you decide to look after that particular species, you'll end up with sterile Gamergate ants sentenced to death.
It's important to provide a special substrate, like coco fibre, for instance, to make sure that the larvae can spin cocoons. Queens are 14-16mm long and workers 12-14mm. They are a famous species due to their aggressiveness and especially the fact that they can jump up to 10 centimetres due to evolved leg muscles! They grow slowly and it is hard to start from just a queen so getting one with 10 or more workers has a higher chance of survival.
I brought a Venator colony on one of our yearly ant trips to China and Vietnam in 2017. Starting with a queen and about 50 workers, I managed to multiply the colony to around 500 workers in just two years. Bear in mind that keeping them at 28°C average temperature, egg to adult takes 70 days on average. Eggs may take up to 25 days to hatch, larvae take about 20 days to pupate, and pupae take about 25 days to emerge into adult ants.
The queen laid two eggs daily maximum, on most days just one. I saw them jumping now and then while hunting and chasing flies and crickets, but never more than 2 inches, despite the ultra-large ant farm they were provided with. Their eyesight was so good that every time I went into the ant room to see how they were going or feed them, they spotted me when I was three meters away. It was the same situation with the bull ants; both have exceptional vision. It's been a nightmare to keep Venators. They were so picky about food and left tons of uneaten food which had to be removed daily. At the end of 2019, the queen ant suddenly passed away and this was the beginning of the end of this story.
Find out everything you need to know about the bull ants in our article: Bull Ants: Nature's Fierce Predators Explained
Pheidologeton diversus aka Carebara diversa.
They have a really painful bite but do not sting. I did test that with a relatively small major, about 12mm one, and ended up with a cut and blood dripping off my finger so do not try this! Do not get fooled by most ant resellers who sell you the Carebara affinis instead of Carebara diversa. The queen's size difference is obvious and can be used as a distinguishing factor as Carebara diversa queens are around 2.5 cm in size, while the Carebara Affinis are smaller, around 1.7 cm.
I started with a queen and just 50 tiny workers I got from Malaysia in 2019 and raised a colony of more than 5000 workers, sized from just 2mm to 8mm, along with a few dozen giant majors, some about 20mm, in just a year. It's been a challenge, though. Egg to worker takes about 26-30 days, keeping those ants at an average temperature of 30 degrees Celsius. For the majors, it takes more time, around 45-50 days. The ant farm has been upgraded several times. The queen will lay lots of eggs daily. Regarding the ant farm, well, I can write tons of information, but that's not my point, so I'll keep it brief. Ensure the substrate is a mixture of sand and loam in 1:1 proportion. Mix it well, then divide it into separate bags and put it in the freezer for 7-10 days to kill any possible contamination or microbes it may have. After this, put each bag (approx. 500 grams) in the microwave(800 Watts) for 3 minutes, open the bags and leave the substrate to cool down. Voila, you are ready to go ahead.
I do not recommend using a heating mat for the ant farm, but a 12-volt self-regulating heating cable powered up by a 5-volt transformer, and of course, controlled by a digital multi-sensor thermoregulator with time setting option control, so you can set different temperatures during the daytime and overnight. Now comes the tricky part, you should put it in such a manner that it heats the bottom at 30% and the rest 70% of warmth is split on the top third of the not higher than 100mm soil filling inside the nest tank. You must paint the heating cable before you start with PVA glue, as it will play an important role in the nest's structural support later on. You must use Natural Jute Thread for extra support while putting the soil. Have you ever seen how the heating underfloor pipes are arranged? Well, put the jute thread in the same way, every 25 mm, starting at the first layer at 25mm, then 50mm and finally at 75mm. The distance between the threads is 25mm as well, so easy to remember. If you skip this step, the nest's chambers might collapse at any point due to their large size, so do not repeat my mistakes.
Set the thermostat to 27 degrees Celsius overnight and 33 degrees Celsius during the day. Do not moisturise the soi,l but use a Mist Spray Bottle on the farm's walls a few times a day if you do not have a fog machine. Keep the air humidity high, between 90 and 97%.
Such a colony requires a tremendous amount of food daily, and you should be very careful when it comes to discarding leftovers so as not to ruin their nest's chambers. I discovered that they prefer dead insects, and you can feed them a large variety of protein-rich food such as mealworms, crickets and locusts along with raw chicken, tuna and Chia seeds, occasionally. The best substitution for live food is the Best Ants UK Cricket Mash, and Diversa ants love it.
5. What are the fastest-growing ant species?
The Solenopsis invicta, aka the red imported fire ant.
I started a colony of these ants with 5 queens and around 50 workers in April 2014. Until November of the same year, I had around 5000 workers. I gave up at the same time, and a fella keeper kept them for the next two years. John reported the colony size had increased to 10,000 workers one year later and to double that number two years later in October 2016. I found nothing interesting about the Solenopsis invicta ants apart from their growth rate.
6. What are the most beautiful ant species?
We have got two favourites sharing the first place, both weaver ants. Oecophylla smaragdina, aka Asian weaver ants, and Polyrhaches dives, aka Silver/Gold Asian weaver ants or Rich Spiny Sugar Ants.
I love Oecophylla Smaragdina ants so much that my team and I built a whole special room in our lab equipped with lots of advanced technology including digital temperature and humidity controllers, special kanthal heaters, fog machines, cutting-edge Samsung LED Red light and mixed light bulbs and other gadgets to succeed in breeding more queens and colonies here in the UK for more than a year. After considering the inability of our clients to keep the queens and their colonies alive for more than a month, we ended up with an empty high-tech room. We started in the Autumn of 2019 with 57 Queen ants and 2 years later released a few hundred queens we bred ourselves on our annual trip to Malaysia, into the wild, near the border with Thailand, despite the coronavirus lockdowns and restrictions. This happened on September the 11th, 2021. We concluded that it's just not right to breed ant species which are not supposed to live here. We also ended once and forever selling ant species with higher requirements for climate.
They love making their nest in Pachira Aquatica (Money tree), and even better, according to our lab results, in Weeping Fig (Ficus benjamin). One-quarter of the colonies preferred the Lemon Plant (Citrus tree), though. They love organic honey and small insects such as houseflies, but will not refuse even a boiled mealworm or locust chopped into tiny pieces.
The Polyrhaches dives are way easier to look after. Similar to the Oecophylla smaragdina, they make nests in trees, stitching the leaves, grass or twigs and even moss together using the silk produced by their larvae. Why are they easier to look after? Well, starting with the fact that they are polygynous, often with 30-50 queens in a colony in nature, you can get a multi-queen colony with 3-5 queens and raise a massive colony in just a year. They love to hunt fruit flies, but do not forget they also love sweet,s so give them plenty.
7. What are the most expensive ant species in the UK?
(updated October 2025)
Considering the ants' habitat requirements and where the UK is on the globe, it's obvious that the ants from Australia and Africa are the most expensive so here you go, a list with the top 10. The price may vary, though.
£550 - Dinomyrmex gigas (Giant Forest Ant)
£330 - Myrmecia fulvipes (Golden Tailed Bull Ant)
£250 - Myrmecia pyriformis (Giant Brown Bulldog Ant)
£250 - Myrmecia nigriceps (Tri-Colour Bulldog Ant)
£220 - Myrmecia pilosula (Shiny Bulldog Ant)
£200 - Myrmecia nigrocincta (Jack Jumping Ant)
£200 - Atta cephalotes (Giant Leafcutter Ant)
£175 - Atta mexicana (Giant Urban Leafcutter Ant)
£170 - Messor cephalotes (Giant African Harvester Ants)
£150 - Acromyrmex octospinosus (Rugged Leaf CutterAnt)
Avoid direct sunlight on the setup.
The sun can heat the nest by up to 5 degrees Celsius for only 5 minutes, so lots of toxins are being accumulated in the ants' bodies due to abrupt temperature changes. This can kill a worker ant for 1-3 days and a queen ant for 3-5 days if the sun does not boil the ants alive before that.
The bottom line. Please note that we do not offer and do not recommend you get Ant species with high climate requirements, unless you've got the necessary knowledge and experience, along with the perfect equipment needed.
The more haste, the less speed. Do not make the ants suffer by jumping to an ant species you're not prepared for.
Try our AI Chatbot for Ant Keeping - available 24/7.
