The Ants Go Marching

Jason told me back before Christmas that he thought Jay was ready for an ant farm, but the idea of having bugs in our house...and then of trying to move said bugs to Grannie's house...and then move them again to a new house was not my idea of something I wanted to try.  So the ant farm stayed on the shelf at the store, and our home stayed bug free.  But then a few weeks ago Jason very excitedly told me that he had found a "space age" ant farm that I just had to see.  And you know what!?  It is pretty darn amazing!!  It is definitely not the creepy and dirty type of ant farm that I remember from my childhood.  

The ants live in this transparent gel substance that acts as a food source for them, and also as place for them to live.  The ant farm unit lights up at the bottom so that the gel stuff glows a fun shade of blue.  The ants tunnel their way through the gel and you can see everything they do.  

Jason was too excited to wait for ants to come in the mail, so he raided a colony of ants in the backyard and collected 30 worker ants and 1 queen ant.  Times like this make me grateful that I married an Eagle Scout because I NEVER would have just gone and found ants in the yard...but he did.  And now we are the proud owners of 31ants.  

 

Jay absolutely loves the ant farm!  He even says good night to it every night before he goes to bed.  Here are some pictures of Jay watching the ants:

 

 

We have had the ants about two weeks now, and they have been busy little ants indeed.  They have four vertical tunnels that are all connected across the bottom by a horizontal tunnel.  And the Queen ant has even laid some ant eggs...or whatever it is that ants do.  And I must admit that they are really fun to watch!  Here is a shot of their tunnels:

 

If you enlarge this picture you can see the little tiny eggs.  They look sort of orange in this picture.  The condensation in the ant farm makes them a little tough to see, but they're there!