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I could and I will though with my luck I've probably missed the mating flights already. I don't believe in excavating established colonies simply because
1) It takes years for those colonies to reach that level of establishment. Then along comes man and the colony is gone from nature. (removing the queen means the colony perishes).
2) Secondly, excavated colonies (from my experience) are the types of colonies that are more likely to crash because. a) They are light sensitive and being exposed to light, after years, especially for the queen can have consequences(such as halting her egg laying cycle).
b) They are used to their natural environment and a 'change in environment' disrupts them and sends them into 'self destruct mode'.
c) They have become used to collecting food a certain way and once that way is eliminated, it becomes very challenging for them to accept formicarium based food.
For these reasons and more, I do not and will not excavate established colonies. However I am all for rearing new colonies from queens in test tubes. In fact I currently have two fire ants in test tubes who have a big clutch of eggs each and will hopefully live to see them become workers. Once they're established, I will release them. What I'm really looking for are carpenter queens. Anyways let's see what happens.
Bob: We do have a very diverse species of ants -- they just aren't the ones you, I and other Americans are looking for. We want big, observable ants. Hop on yahoo if you're still at your comp!
Quite honestly, I like small ants? They take up allot less space, Well unless they are Creamatogaster, then you know how that is! Take a look at Temnothorax, they are small, easy to rear, and funny to see 20 alates being supported by 40 workers.
I understand if you like bigger ants. I prefer them to, but i also have a lot of small species, they are very nice to and also (most times) easier to keep. Maybe you need to start with some species from you own country (always easier).
I must say I'm glad i live in Europe, here we can buy ore trade ants. ;)
Well technically we can only trade ants throughout the EU. Before that you wouldn't be able to trade them outside Germany without the proper documents and all.
Same way you can trade ants throughout the states of the US but not outside it. Anyway there are indeed a lot of species of ants in the US as you already know. So guess someone has to start an antstore in the us.
Alan is starting a store in the UK and has sourced loads of stuff for it. Maybe if you are really dedicated you can ask him for advice and solve the problem for all americans looking to buy ants :)
As far as I know, in the US you can't even trade between the states ... so evry state needs it's own store ^^ Okay, this law sounds ridiculous ... but if you compare the squaremiles of one state and for example germany ... you see, that every state might have other ants or the same species differ genetically. In Europe not much people think about such problems ... but such a large country like the US early thought about problems with trading species between states. And they have problems with fire ants ... for that they are much more aware of these problems than we are ... ... okay, some people somewhen in the governement where aware of that problem ... the majority of people isn't I think :-) --> thread starter ^^