Here you will find answers of Frequently Asked Questions and general Information. If you don't find what you are looking for just write us an email.
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All offered ants colonies in our shop are strictly sold with Queens (unless otherwise stated). Anything else would not make a sense since ants workers usually only survive some weeks until months (on rare occasions some years).
We only sell mated Queens that are able to produce fertilized eggs where female workers will hatch from. However if it turns out that dispite of our carefulness a Queen wasn't mated we will replace it for free or refund your money.
Some ants species requires hibernation, some kind of rest period. This affects most of the ants species from temperate zone. In hibernation stage the ants colonies will backtrack into deeper soil layers. In this time they don't require food, brood development is also stopped. However nest area must not dry out. The hibernation stage is more distinct in northern zones, in the Mediterranean area (Southern Europe for example) most ants species only have a slight and short hibernation stage where the ants are mostly still active.
Most ants colonies were kept long time in test tubes before shipping. Unless otherwise stated it is inadvisable to remove them from test tube. The best solution is to put the opened test tube in a prepared basin and let the ants decide to to move. This could take some days or weeks! Some species will close the test tube entry with soil, this is no reason for concern.
Unless otherwise stated in article description the best soil would be a mixture of soil-loam or sand-loam (e.g. 2:1). It is unadvisable to use pure sand, especially fine grained sand because it dries out very fast and it tend to collapse. But also raw gravel is totally inappropriate, and raw loam should't be used because it tends to become very concrete if it dries out. The soil layer shouldn't be too thin because keeping soil humidity constant can become very difficult.
However there are some ants species ideal for keeping them in ytong stones. Attention should be also paid to moistness of the stone. It is desireable to embed this stone into the soil so that moistness from soil can pour into the stone from bottom.
Required air humidity depends on the ants species. However air humidity is not of such big importance than soil humidity. Too high moisture or dammed air (e.g. fully closed basin) can contribute to mold build-up (rests of food and other organic mater) and also may leads to mites increase. In the majority of cases air humidity is negligible and don't required to be controlled separately. It should be regulated by soil moisture.
It turned out that in most cases a good solution is to run dry first centimeters of the soil layer and keep the lower layers moist. Of course, the nest area must not dry out!
If you have a basin with a soil layer of about 5 centimeters for instance, you could run try the first centimeter. This will prevent mold build-up und guarantees ideal moisture for nest area.
Air humidity should be conform to origin area. Ants from tropical rain forest should have higher air humidity than ants from Souther Europe for example. But also in tropical areas the ants exposed high variation in temperature and humidity. The difference between rainy season and dry season can be extreme.
In most cases planting is not necessary and is only a matter of decoration. Planting doesn't make sense for various species like Acromyrmex or Atta since they will destroy the plants very soon.
Bei den meisten Ameisen ist als Nahrung angegeben dass diese mit Zucker- Honigwasser und Insekten gefüttert werden können. Ausnahmen sind natürlich solche Arten wie Atta, Acromyrmex, Messor usw. welche ganz spezielles Futter benötigen. So benötigen Atta und Acromyrmex z.B. Pflanzenblätter auf dem sie einen Pilz kultivieren der ihre Hauptnahrungsgrundlage darstellt. Messor sammelt Körner, also verschiedene Pflanzensamen ein die zu einem sog. Ameisenbrot verarbeitet werden. Die meisten Ameisenarten lassen sich jedoch mit Zucker- bzw. Honigwasser füttern. Dies ist jedoch in der Regel nicht ausreichend da proteinhaltige Nahrung für die Brutentwicklung benötigt wird. Aus diesem Grund sollte man ebenfalls regelmäßig proteinhaltige Nahrung in Form von z.B. Insekten füttern. Pheidologeton diversus z.B. kann man auch mit rohem Fleisch (gehacktes) füttern (Nur größere Kolonien). Diese sammeln wie Messor ebenfalls regelmäßig Körner ein.
The shipping costs depends on shipping method, weight and size.
Germany
European Union
Shipping costs may be higher for bulky or fragile good or if it is larger than default size (usually 60x60x60 cm)
Shipping to swiss is also possible, however we need an import licence for this purpose. Please contact Federal Office for agriculture, Department Plant protection. This licence costs about 20 CHF and need to be re-requested for every shipping.
Yes we will also ship to non EU countries. However you are responsible to provide us with a valid import license for your country (if required). Please also note, there may be extra import taxes in your country.
Yes with some exceptions we also delivery in winter. We will send with heat pack and isolated packaging, of course without any extra charge. However shipping of European ants in winter isn't a problem in most cases.
Usually we will ship our sendings as letter with german postal service "Deutsche Post" because this is the cheapest. Track & Trace is not supported for usual letters. If you want get a tracking code, you have to select GLS or TNT Express (International).
You can pay orders either by using european wire (bank) transfer with IBAN/BIC, by PayPal or on account. Last one is only available to existing customers who made at least 5 ordering. In this case the customer has to settle the bill by no later than 14 days after receiving.
Payments by credit cards are only indirectly possible through PayPal.
To speed up ordering procedure you can send us a copy of your bank payment slip. This must either be signed by the bank in some way or you may send us a screenshot of your online payment slip including TAN number. This screenshot has to be readable and should be at least 1 mega pixel in size. This speed up procedure is only valid for payments up to 500 EUR. Above 500 EUR we have to wait for money receipt as usual. If genuineness of this screenshot is doubtful we can't speed up ordering procedure.
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