Your First Year of Ant Keeping | What to Expect Month by Month
Updated: 3 days ago
Key Takeaways
Ant keeping is a slow-burning hobby, and the first year is the making of your colony. After nearly thirty years of doing this, here is the honest shape of it, right from the moment you catch your queen.
• Step one | Catching your queen: spot a true queen, get her into a test tube, and leave her be. The founding home could not be simpler.
• Months 1 to 2 | Founding: a lone queen in a test tube, a tiny drop of protein jelly once a week, no fuss. Leave her in peace and let her raise her first workers.
• Months 3 to 5 | First workers: the nanitics arrive, feeding begins, and the colony slowly climbs towards ten workers.
• Months 6 to 8 | Moving day: at ten or more workers, she is ready for a proper formicarium and a real growth spurt.
• Months 9 to 12 | First winter: growth slows, the queen stops laying, and the colony rests. This is normal and healthy, not a problem to fix.
• All year | Water first: a dried-out nest loses more first colonies than anything else. Keep the nest damp and the outworld dry.
• The payoff: a black garden ant queen can live nearly 29 years. Year one is the foundation of a pet that can outlast almost any other.
Lasius niger Care at a Glance
Everything you need to know about a black garden ant colony in its first year, in one place.
• Species: Lasius niger, the black garden ant, native to the UK and the easiest species to start with.
• Temperature: a steady 20 to 26°C, out of direct sunlight.
• Test tube size: 16mm for Lasius.
• Nest humidity: 75 to 85 per cent, with a drier outworld.
• Water: mineral, distilled or purified only, never tap or rainwater.
• Food: protein jelly and a tiny drop of organic honey, twice a week, in the outworld only. Leftovers out after two days.
• First workers: around two to three months after founding.
• Moving day: at ten or more workers.
• Winter: slows from around October, picks up again in late March or early April.
• Winter floor: never below 10°C, and never a fridge.
• Queen lifespan: recorded at just short of 29 years.
Step One | You Have Caught Your First Queen
For most keepers the adventure begins on a muggy summer evening on Flying Ant Day, when the winged queens pour out for their nuptial flight. If you have spotted a large winged ant on the pavement after rain, you may be holding the start of a colony that outlives the family car. Here is exactly what to do with her.
Is It Really a Queen?
This is the first thing to get right, because a worker will never start a colony. A queen is two to three times the size of a worker. A black garden ant queen is around 9 to 10mm long, against 3 to 5mm for a worker; a yellow meadow ant queen is a little smaller at 7 to 8mm. She has a bulky, muscular middle section, the thorax, which can be more than half her body and once powered her wings, and a plumper, wider rear. Freshly flown queens still carry their wings, and after mating they snap them off, leaving small dark stubs or scars on the thorax. Shed wings usually mean she has mated, though it is never a cast-iron guarantee: only time and eggs confirm it.
The First Hour
Handle her as little as possible. Never pinch or grab her: coax her into a tube or small pot with a soft brush, a leaf or the edge of a card, then close it gently without shaking. Keep her shaded, because a small container heats up fast and a minute of direct sun can raise the temperature inside by around 5°C, which is deadly. If you are just starting out, keep no more than one to three queens; a first colony is plenty to learn on.
Setting Up Her Test Tube
A freshly caught queen does not need sand, soil, or a nest. She needs a simple test tube founding setup, and it is the proven founding home for good reason. Use a 16mm tube for Lasius. Fill about a third of it with mineral, distilled or purified water only, never tap or rainwater, which brings fungus even when boiled, and fungus kills a founding queen. Push a cotton ball down in one smooth motion until it meets the water and forms a firm plug with no air gap; this slowly wicks moisture into the chamber and holds the humidity she needs. Pop her in, then seal the open end with a second cotton ball, snug enough to keep her in but loose enough to let air through. Finally, wrap most of the tube in foil or paper so it feels like being underground.
Keep the tube somewhere dark, still and steady at 20 to 26°C, such as a drawer or cupboard, away from sunlight, radiators, speakers, washing machines and foot traffic.
To Feed or Not to Feed
Feed her. Every queen benefits from a little food during founding, whether she is fully claustral like the black garden ant or semi-claustral. A claustral queen can survive on her own body reserves, but surviving is all she does: in nature around 97% of queens never make it, mostly because they cannot find food. At Best Ants UK we feed every founding queen, and a tiny meal once a week gives her around 50% more chance of raising her first workers (the nanitics), laying a strong second batch of eggs and going on to build a thriving colony. Offer a teeny drop of protein jelly, about half a grain of rice, on a small flat piece of tin foil placed inside the test tube right next to the cotton stopper, at the dry end away from the water. It can stay there until the next weekly feed. Once the first workers emerge, feeding moves to the outworld, and we cover exactly how below.
That really is all there is to the first few weeks: a quiet tube, the right water, darkness and patience. From here, the month-by-month journey begins.
Before You Start: Set Your Expectations
I will be straight with you, because it saves heartache later. Most people who give up on ant keeping do so in the first couple of months, and nearly always for the same reason. They expected a fish tank full of activity and got a quiet tube with a single ant sitting in it. That is not failure. That is exactly how a healthy colony begins.
This guide walks you through a realistic first year with a black garden ant (Lasius niger), the species I recommend to almost every beginner. We start at the very beginning, the moment you catch your first queen, and take you right through to a thriving colony twelve months on. And if you would rather skip the slow, uncertain founding stage, a ready-started colony with workers already in place puts you months ahead on day one, backed by our live arrival guarantee.
Months 1 to 2 | The Founding Stage
With your queen settled in her tube, the founding stage is mostly a waiting game, and the less you interfere the better. Give her a tiny drop of protein jelly once a week, as described above, and otherwise leave her in peace. Do not open the tube for anything else. Do not check every day.
Keep her somewhere dark, quiet and steady at 20 to 26°C. A drawer or a cupboard is perfect. Inside the tube, she will lay a small clutch of eggs, and from egg to first worker takes roughly six to eight weeks, a little faster in the warm, slower in the cold. It is slow, and it is meant to be.
The single most common mistake I see is disturbing her. Picture living quietly in a dark room, and every day a giant lifts the roof off your house, blinding you with light. How long would you last? A stressed queen will often eat her own eggs and start again. Leave her be, and let her work. If she is sitting so still that you fear the worst, do not open the tube: gently tilt it a little instead, and a living queen will almost always shift or right herself in response.
What Normal Founding Looks Like
New keepers worry over behaviour that is perfectly normal. During founding, all of these are fine:
• Sitting still for long periods
• Grooming herself often
• A small cluster of white eggs
• Picking up and carrying her eggs when disturbed, which is your cue to cover her and leave her alone
• Eggs that seem to vanish, then turn up elsewhere in the tube
• Slower progress when the room is cooler
• Keeping one or both wings
Her brood passes through four stages you will come to recognise: egg, then larva, then cocoon, then worker. Watching each one appear is half the fun.
If you have not bought anything yet and want a colony that skips this fragile stage, our live Lasius niger colonies ship with a queen and workers already established, backed by a live arrival guarantee.
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.
Months 3 to 5 | First Workers and First Feeds
Somewhere around the two- to three-month mark, the first workers appear. These are nanitics, smaller and paler than the workers that follow, and they get straight to work tending the queen and the brood. This is the moment the colony comes alive, and the first worker you see is a genuine milestone. Give a brand-new worker a day to darken and harden before you disturb anything.
Now, feeding begins. Offer a small amount of protein jelly and a tiny drop of organic honey twice a week, always in the outworld, never in the nest. For a small colony, an amount the size of a single grain of rice is plenty. Serve the honey on a scrap of cotton wool so nobody drowns in it, and always remove anything uneaten after two days before it turns to mould.
Resist the urge to overfeed, because more food does not mean faster growth. A tiny colony cannot eat a big meal, and whatever is left over turns mouldy in the warm, damp air. Match the meal to the size of the colony, and if a portion is not finished, offer less next time rather than more. You will notice the queen grow calmer and more mobile now her workers are tending the brood, while the nanitics stay close to home at first; when you see them probing the cotton wool or gathering near the entrance, that is the first sign of foraging.
Keep watering with mineral, distilled, or purified water only, never tap or rainwater, which brings fungus, and fungus kills a founding colony. Aim for 75 to 85 per cent humidity in the nest, keeping the outworld drier. Warmth drives growth: at a steady room temperature, the colony grows faster than in a cold room. If your room regularly drops below 18°C, an Advanced Heating System Small 4W with its thermostat holds the right temperature, warming only a quarter of the nest on the opposite side from the water.
Months 6 to 8 | Moving Into a Formicarium
Once the colony reaches ten or more workers, she is ready to leave the test tube for a proper nest. Move her too early, into too much empty space, and a small colony struggles to hold its humidity and settle. Wait for those ten workers, and moving day becomes a milestone rather than a gamble.
This is where a purpose-built kit earns its place. Our Lucas starter kit is designed for exactly this stage of a Lasius niger colony, with the right nest, outworld and a pre-installed digital humidity and temperature meter that takes the guesswork out of it. Follow the full method in our step-by-step setup guide, wrap the test tube in tinfoil for the first fortnight, then slide it out a millimetre or two a day so the ants meet the light gently. Run a strip of PTFE fluon around the top inner edge of the outworld, let it dry fully, and make sure the silicone tubing sits snugly on every connection so nobody wanders off at feeding time.
A word of warning I repeat often: never force them across with heat or light, and never pick a nest that dwarfs the colony. Ants should fill roughly a fifth of their space, or they lose track of what is nest and what is larder. Start small and upgrade as they grow. And keep the new farm in normal daylight but out of direct sunlight, away from windows, radiators, vibration, speakers and strong-smelling rooms like the kitchen.
Humidity | The One Thing That Loses Most First Colonies
If you take one lesson from this whole guide, make it this. Far more first colonies are lost to a dried-out nest than to hunger, cold or the wrong species. When the nest dries out, the queen stops laying and the workers abandon the brood. It happens quietly, over a week or two, and it looks like a mystery. It is not. The clearest warning sign is the whole colony packing itself back into the test tube, because the damp cotton there is the only moisture they have left.
Watering is simple, as long as you go slowly. Using the pipette provided, add mineral, distilled or purified water a few drops at a time through the watering hole of the nest. Stop as soon as one or two drops appear inside the nest, because that is your sign the job is done, and any more is too much. Do this about once a week, a little more in summer and less in winter, and never water the outworld.
Spare a thought for the Sateré-Mawé
While you wait on your gentle black ants, consider this. To become men, young lads of the Sateré-Mawé tribe in Brazil pull on gloves woven full of live bullet ants, whose sting tops the pain index and burns for a full 24 hours, and hold them on for ten minutes. Then they do it again, up to twenty times over. Your Lasius niger queen, by contrast, asks nothing of you but patience and the occasional drop of honey. You can read about the bullet ant and four more you would never want in the house in our Five Most Dangerous Ants piece.
Months 9 to 12 | The First Winter Rest
As autumn arrives, everything slows, and this is the part that catches out every first-year keeper. The queen lays less, then stops. The workers turn sluggish. Foraging drops off. Nothing is wrong. This is diapause, the natural winter rest, and it is essential: it strengthens the queen for next summer's laying season.
Lasius niger winds down from around October and picks back up in late March or early April. Here is the bit worth hearing from someone who has watched it for decades: hibernation is not compulsory. Your ants will slow down and rest wherever they are, so if you do not have the equipment or the confidence to cool them properly, do not force it. Simply keep them out of direct sun and away from heaters, keep the water topped up, and let them be. Our hibernation guide covers the full method if you want to do it properly.
You may read online that ants should be hibernated in a fridge. Please do not. A fridge means an abrupt temperature drop, which makes ants unwell, and for UK species like Lasius niger, 10°C is the floor: below 8°C the queen's stored sperm dies, and with it the colony's future. That is also why we never hibernate queens in their first year. It is simply not necessary, and a young colony kept out of the cold slows down on its own and picks up again in spring. Never drop the temperature suddenly, and come spring the queen begins laying again, heading into her second year properly established.
The Five Most Common First-Year Mistakes
Almost every lost first colony comes down to one of these five. Avoid them, and you are most of the way there.
1. Checking the nest too often
Every peek floods the tube with light and vibration, and a stressed queen will eat her own eggs and start again. Once a week is the maximum. The hardest part of ant keeping, especially at the start, is doing nothing.
2. Letting the nest dry out
The biggest killer of first colonies, and the easiest to prevent. Water slowly, a few drops at a time, until one or two drops appear inside the nest, and watch for the whole colony moving back into the test tube, which is the clearest sign the nest has gone too dry.
3. Moving too soon, or into too much space
Wait for ten or more workers before moving day, and choose a nest that suits the colony you have, not the one you hope to have. Ants should fill roughly a fifth of their space. In a nest that dwarfs them, they struggle to hold humidity and lose track of what is nest and what is larder.
4. Starting with a species that is too demanding
Exotic species look spectacular online, but they need more experience and far tighter conditions. Start with a forgiving species like Lasius niger or Messor barbarus, learn the basics of humidity and temperature, and move on to the exotics once you have a full year behind you.
5. Cutting corners on the setup
Gel farms go mouldy within days and offer no real nutrition, concrete-block and homemade nests are a gamble with your queen's life, and cheap thin plastic boxes warp when damp and have no way to hold humidity. A purpose-built kit, with a proper humidity system, a separate nest and outworld, and a way to feed without opening the nest, is the single best investment you can make in your first colony.
A Quick Word on the Long Game
Here is why patience pays. A black garden ant queen has been recorded living just short of 29 years, the longest lifespan of any social insect on record. The workers come and go, living a year or two, but the queen you are nursing through this quiet first year could still be laying eggs decades from now. Few pets on earth offer anything close.
The second year is where your patience pays you back. After the first winter rest the colony wakes up stronger, and once it passes around fifty workers, growth starts to snowball: more workers bring in more food, more brood is raised and more eggs are laid. This is when the foraging trails get busy and the hobby really opens up, and it is the time to plan a larger nest to connect as the colony grows.
Prefer a livelier first year? Messor barbarus harvester ants grow into polymorphic colonies, with majors carrying massive mandibles and busy seed-collecting trails, and they make ant bread from their stores, which is a sight in itself. The Angie starter kit pairs a Messor colony with the same built-in meter. Both are covered in our ant farm buying guide if you are still choosing.
The Bottom Line
Your first year is quiet, then slow, then suddenly rewarding. Catch a true queen and settle her in a test tube, give her a tiny drop of protein jelly once a week while she founds, feed lightly once the workers arrive, keep the nest damp, move her at ten workers, and let her rest through winter. Do that, and after three decades of watching people fall for this hobby, I can promise you the payoff: not just a jar of ants, but a colony that can outlive almost everything else in the house.
Ready to begin? Browse our complete starter kits and start your colony the right way.
Want the whole year on four printable pages? Download our free First-Year Ant-Keeping Checklist (PDF), or find out more on our free checklist page.
FAQs
I have just caught a queen. What do I do first?
Get her into a test tube founding setup: a third filled with mineral, distilled or purified water, a firm cotton plug, her sealed in behind a second cotton ball, and the tube wrapped in foil and kept dark at 20 to 26°C. Feed her a tiny drop of protein jelly, about half a grain of rice, once a week on a small flat piece of tin foil placed next to the cotton stopper, open the tube only for that weekly feed, and check through the glass once a week at most. Then simply wait for her first eggs.
How do I tell a queen ant from a worker?
A queen is much bigger than a worker, with a bulky middle section, the thorax, that once powered her flight muscles. A black garden ant queen is 9 to 10mm against 3 to 5mm for a worker. A freshly mated queen may still have her wings, or small stubs where she snapped them off. Workers are smaller, slimmer and never have wings. A queen bought from us is always a mated, laying queen.
How long does it take to grow an ant colony?
Slowly at first. A Lasius niger queen produces her first workers around two to three months after founding, then the colony climbs from a handful of workers to a busy nest across the first year. Growth is fastest in warm months and pauses over winter. With patience, a Lasius niger colony can eventually reach several thousand workers.
When can I move my ants into a formicarium in the first year of ant keeping?
Once the colony has at least ten workers. Before that, keep them in the test tube, where the humidity and security are ideal. Moving a very small colony into a large empty nest is one of the most common ways beginners lose a queen.
Do I need to feed the queen straight away?
Yes, a little, once a week. Every queen can survive founding on her own body reserves, whether she is fully claustral like the black garden ant or semi-claustral, but in nature around 97% of queens never make it, mostly because they cannot find food. A tiny drop of protein jelly once a week gives her around 50% more chance of raising her first workers, laying her second batch of eggs and building a thriving colony. Once the workers emerge, feeding moves to the outworld, with a little protein jelly and organic honey twice a week.
How do I know if my ant nest is too dry?
The clearest sign is the whole colony moving out of the nest and back into the test tube, where the damp cotton is their last moisture. If your kit has a built-in digital meter, like Lucas and Angie, aim for 75 to 85 per cent for Lasius niger. To fix it, add mineral, distilled or purified water a few drops at a time through the watering hole until one or two drops appear inside the nest.
Why has my colony stopped growing in winter?
Because it is meant to. Lasius niger slows from around October as the queen stops laying and the colony rests through diapause. It is natural and healthy, and it prepares the queen for a strong laying season the following summer. Keep the water topped up and let them rest.
Do I need to hibernate my ants in their first year?
No. We do not hibernate queens in their first year, and a young colony kept at a steady room temperature simply slows down on its own over winter. If you choose to hibernate later on, never use a fridge, never drop the temperature suddenly, and never go below 10°C for UK species like Lasius niger.
Can I go on holiday and leave my ants in the first year?
Yes, they are remarkably low-maintenance. Before you go, water the nest fully and leave a small amount of food in the outworld. A well-moistened colony copes comfortably for a fortnight in the warmer months. For longer trips, ask someone to check the water once a week, and that is all they need.
Is ant keeping a good hobby for beginners?
Yes, provided you start with a forgiving species like Lasius niger, use a proper formicarium rather than a cheap gel or plastic box, and accept that the first year is a slow build. Ongoing costs are low, and the payoff is a long-lived, endlessly watchable colony.
