I'm planning on taking notes and doing whatever research I can with this thing as a hobbyist. My hope is that maybe this can be used to demonstrate how nasty these things can be so people stop trying to get them shipped outside of the quarantine zone

If you've got any advice or name suggestions or warnings or whatever, let me know. Here's the FAQ

1. Is this Moral? Why not let them go?

Fire ants are an invasive species and I am in a state on the quarantine line. They attack native species as well as livestock. They cannot be shipped or sold due to federal law. In addition the ones near me are polygynous, which I can tell due to the number of mounds per acre. The alternative to this is to kill them. We even spray for them around this time as well. I more or less saved them. Probably 1% would live to actually be queens after a year.

2. What's that glassware? Is it too big?

The glassware is recycled lab equipment that was discarded due to the throat breaking. It's use was most likely with a vacuum oven or similar system The most important feature is that it allows me to feed and refill the water without opening the damn thing. In addition since fire ants can climb, the system can be extended by turning it sideways and putting on more glassware. The current set up has the queen chamber covered, for obvious reasons. There's also a secondary chamber and water supply in case lesser queens get bullied out or something. As of now, the queens seem very cozy in it, with only a few leaving. In fact, it's loaded up right now. All 55 queens are in it.

3. How the hell are you planning to feed these things?

My original interest in ants stemmed from the fact that our neighborhood has a terrible roly poly infestation. They literally get into our houses and I'm vacuuming up dead ones every few days. Thanks to that secondary feeding tube, I could probably just scrape them off the walls (yuck) and plop them in. Hopefully I can just leave this thing outside and watch them go to town. Who knows.