Live Ants for Ant Farms Plus Sand Refill Included, 10oz Sand by Nature Gift Store

I have ordered these ants 3 years in a row for my classroom. They arrive (mostly) alive - you always lose 1 or 2, no biggie because I order 50 - and are active. I put them in our class ant farm, turn it around to face a wall & give them privacy, and let them do their thing. We keep the farm facing a wall to give them a place to work in peace, but the kids turn them around whenever they want to watch them. The kids love bringing back bits of fruits & veggies from lunch to see what they'll eat. All in all, a great purchase for classroom observations of life cycles and adaptations!Oh, and the one year a student claimed our ant farm ants got into his Chromebook so he shouldn't have to pay the fines...yeah, these guys are nothing like any ants around our area. I greatly appreciated that these big red guys looked nothing like the tiny black sugar ants he had crawling in his Chromebook! (Insect Lore Ant Mountain has NEVER let an ant escape in my classroom.)

If you are looking for a fun nature based experience for kids, do not get this. The ants were unable to dig in the sparkly sand that was provided. I emailed customer service to try to troubleshoot the issue. They said to be sure to read the instructions and put enough water. We followed the instructions exactly - 3 drops of water and small crumb every 3 days days. The ants immediately died and were unable to dig a single tunnel. I am not an expert but the ants were trying to dig and could never move the sand. We previously had ants and sand and they were able to tunnel and lived much longer.If you are looking to teach your children about death and animals dying in captivity, go ahead.

Happy boys here! Most ants were alive upon arrival (I think I might have killed a couple transferring to farm) and a couple more died the next day...this was expected though so I’m very pleased. They are eating well and have made several tunnels. We did not have near enough sand arrive with them to fill our farm but if you read how much comes with it and how big your farm is, you will know to have enough ready for the transfer! That is my main reason I wanted to leave a great review, because most people who leave bad ones don’t read all the details. We will order these again!!!

Ants came healthy and all alive. I received about 55 ants, which is more than advertised. It’s been about 5 weeks and most are still alive and healthy! I’ve even moved them between habitats and dropped them during transport and these hearty ants are still kicking. Definitely put them in the fridge for about 5 min to stun them before moving them initially from the tube to their habitat because they are very fast. Keep the tubes as the ants will nest in them and you can use the tubes if you ever need to get them out of the habitat to move them.I’m giving 4 stars because an ant colony should come with a Queen ant. Without a Queen, the ants don’t have a purpose. They will dig tunnels and do things like bury their dead and hoard food, but without a Queen they really have no direction in life and will did prematurely. I’m also giving 4 stars because I wanted to add to my colony and while the seller did respond honestly and quickly, they couldn’t guarantee that if I purchased more ants that they would be from the same colony. Only if they are from the same colony will they get along. So I’m not able to addd to the current colony.Overall if you are looking for a short term farm and a few fun ants to watch, these are a great purchase. Just don’t ask for advice on any ant keeping groups. You will get roasted for the horrific torture you bring upon the ants when you separate them from their queen.

Initially I received mostly dead ants unfortunately, so I put in a return request and explained the situation. A few days after I got a new package of ants, this time everyone of them is alive! I wasn’t expecting that to happen but very glad that it did :) I love these ants, within a few hours of getting them into their home they already had a good tunnel going. They are super active and love tunneling!

Half were dead they didn't touch the huge piece of carrot in the tube

Don’t buy it. It’s not worth it. Got here with 4 alive ants and none were queens. I have other ants so I know what a queen looks like. Yeah, none. The rest died the next day. Pointless and a waste of money. Can’t return dead ants I guess.

I was so upset . Got an ant farm for granddaughter and she was so excited to see what the ants would do in her farm . When I finally ordered the ants there were only 5 alive and after following the instructions to the T they all died within a week . I would really stress to the seller to pack the ants for next day delivery instead of 5 days .... if that could be done I'm sure the ants would have had a better chance at surviving