Ant Farming...

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Hello Fellow Insectologists, Have any of you had the joy of managing an ant-farm? That's a specialized insectarium for raising a captive colony of ants, hopefully with a queen or two to keep the colony viable. They used to sell them in the big department & toy stores years ago here in Australia. They were really just a toy, but well enough constructed to do the job. Consisted of just a couple of rigid sheets of clear plastic, and the necessary ends, top and bottom to hold them in place. You'd fill the gap between the two clear plastic panes with coarse sand, toss in your specimens and let them go to town. They'd get to work building little tunnels and stuff, just like they would underground out in the garden - but it was all on display for you to see. I was never too successful with mine, because I was never successful in getting a queen ant to start up a colony or to keep one going. But just plain worker ants were sufficiently well-programmed to do a sterling job of building a nest anyway, even without a queen. And they seemed to live for a couple of weeks if you kept them supplied with bits of food and sugar and a few drops of water and stuff. Very important to keep the whole thing securely capped, though - otherwise the little buggers would be out and about and all over your house! Just bye the bye, have you ever wondered why ants look a lot like little wasps, without the wings? That's because they allegedly ARE wasps - at least, a more communally evolved version of those otherwise relatively big, nasty, primitive beasts that build paper nests which hang from the rafters (and wasps are carnivorous - so keep tha barbecue steak hidden from the wasps as well as the ants!). The thing about ants which really amazes me (and irritates me no end, too) is that they have this close symbiosis with other critters like aphids, where the aphids suck the life out of your veges but also give off sweet liquid which the ants like to eat... SO the ants actually raise herds of these little beasts inside the ant nest, carry the little mongrels out onto the pastures (ie, your veges) and actively defend them from attack by other predators (such as spiders and parasitic wasps). You'd have to wonder how such intricate and seemingly intelligent patterns of behavior could have developed. It's apparently not learned - the ants do it without having to be instructed on the mater. I just wish I could find some little Rambo bug that is programmed to on a rampage, with hand grenades and flame thrower in hand, through any herd of aphids that it can find. Wishful thinking, I guess. But getting back to the ant-farms - have any of you had the pleasure? Maybe in your school science class, or even just at home in the basement?