[vishbar]

That is really interesting! I never had an ant farm, and I'm glad I didn't given what you've said.

Are ants similar to bees in that there's one egg-laying "queen" that you have to gather, or can you just gather a collection of individuals from a colony?

Your kid probably already knows about this, but have him check out the YouTuber AntsCanada. I'm not particularly into ants but I find his videos fascinating.

[JulianMorrison]

Ants have queens. Ants are a kind of flightless wasp, they have a lot of commonalities with the wasp/bee family.

[btilly]

My kid has been aware of AntsCanada for a long time, and has purchased lots of supplies from them.

Yes, most ants are similar to bees in that way. In fact ants and bees are very closely related. But a few kinds of ants (for example the invasive Argentine ants), can have multiple queens in a colony that cooperate with each other.

The reason for this rule is the ease with which ants become invasive species, and how much damage they can do.

[hashkb]

Does your kid know about SimAnt?

[btilly]

He's at school so I can't just ask him.

But if it comes to ants, I'm willing to bet money that he knows it.

I remember being at a bug fair with him a few years back. There was a grad student with a display including some fossilized ants. My son came over, looked, identified the genus, began pointing out the identifying characteristics and named multiple related current species. The grad student's jaw dropped open. The only things that the grad student knew which my son didn't was how old the fossil was and where it was found.

And here is some fun trivia. If you look, between the thorax (where the legs grow) and the gaster (the bulb at the end), there is a very, very skinny petiole. The only food that can pass through that and keep the ant alive is high energy fluid. So a major problem for every species of ant is how to turn the world around into such a fluid so that they can eat it.