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| Home >> Toy Details and Reviews >> Fascinations ANTW2 Antworks Illuminated | ||||||||||||
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User Submitted Fascinations ANTW2 Antworks Illuminated Reviews (cont...)Date: 2007-04-16 A hit with students in Library I am a library assistant in an elementary school. I bought this farm for my desk in the library. Every child from Kindergarten to 5th grade comes to library on a regular basis and what a hit this thing has been. Instead of heading for the books when they arrive, they have been going straight to the farm to check on the ants. They love it!! Actually, so do I. The Science teachers have all gotten the link from me to order them for their classrooms. The conversations that go on around my desk are priceless! I plan on starting a new one at the beginning of the school year in the Fall. Also, you can't beat this price - the looks on the kids' faces are worth every penny and more. Date: 2007-04-03 Great gift idea When my 10 year old son asked for an ant farm for his birthday, I tried to discourage it. My thought was a dirty, ugly sand pile with dead ants. But this product was ideal. Every day it is fascinating to watch the ants work as a team and the gel that they live in is clean, clear and easy to view. Just remember to order the ants ahead of time if you want to give this as a gift. Don't try to use ordinary outdoor ants. The harvester ants are bigger and interesting. I'm glad I bought this for him. Date: 2007-03-30 Works for Australian ants, too. We bought our Antworks for our 7-year-old son, but everyone else has found it mesmerising. We live in Queensland, Australia, so the mail order Harvester ants available to US customers were not an option. There is an excellent local substitute, however, the green-headed ant, pictured here: [...] Our green-headed workers hesitated for an hour or two and then tunnelled like mad - beautiful, clear tunnels deep in the gel, criss-crossing and widening into hollows against the sides of the container. Their jaws are relatively large, and the small plastic jeweller's loupe supplied gives you a good view of the action as they bite off the gel and transport it to the top of the container. The blue medium seems to suit them admirably; most of our ants lived just over three months. We also bought the LED base, highly recommended despite the extra cost as it highlights the tunnels to great effect (and the blue glow is stunning in a darkened room). We suspect that the near-constant illumination may have shortened the ants' lives, however, as those in the mini-version of this product (purchased at the same time) enjoyed normal night and day cycles and are still going strong nearly a month after the last of the big colony citizens expired. The colony was easy to clean with a cotton-tipped swab, though you don't really need to do this as the gel contains fungicides that keep things pretty clean despite the litter of dead ant parts. When all the ants die, you can sluice out the gel under a gentle stream from the cold water tap (any debris deep in the tunnels just flushes out), tip it to drain, and start again. (You can re-set the gel into a solid block, too - wash it out, warm the container under hot water to slide it out, chop it up and melt in short bursts of a few seconds in the microwave (some users suggest adding a few drops of water for this). Cool slightly and pour back in.) If you want to see the full life cycle in action, you'll need to catch a queen. There are no commercial retailers of queen ants here that I've been able to discover, but I understand that the winged queens often fall into pools and cluster near windows after nuptial flights on warm evenings. The advice from a local forum is to collect these into a container with a lid and leave them overnight. You'll be able to recognise the fertilised queens in the morning, as they will shed their wings. In summary: a great product which can work anywhere. Date: 2007-03-24 So ones with DIRT are called VINTAGE now?! We got this the other day as a gift unexpectedly. What a great idea! Have always wanted to get the boys an ant farm and this gel makes it so easy to see what is happening. The LED light is BRIGHT, filling my living room! So happens that both of my children are studying insects in their seperate schools so the kids are taking turns taking the habitat, but today is my day to have it at work. Anyone that thinks ants come with ant farms is ubsurd and impatient. They would have all the tunnels started and you would miss the first stage of the experience. We woke some harvesters out of hibernation in our yard, and as they die, plan to add to our collection from the same anthill. What a pleasant study in nature to gather them ourselves! The lid on this model fits TIGHT! I broke 2 nails and ended up having to pry the top off with a stick. That was my biggest concern. Comes with an booklet full of ant facts that is readable to an 8 year old. We were amazed! Date: 2007-03-20 Great conversation piece for the office My son gave me this ant farm for Christmas this year. I ordered the ants the next day and then started waiting. The unused ant farm sat in my office and my coworkers all wanted to know what it was. Their first comment was "it didn't come with the ants?" The answer is "of course not, they would be dead by the time someone bought it." You have to order your ants and it can take a long time for them to come in, especially in the winter. It took several weeks for the ants to arrive. They come in a small brown pouch containing one vial of ants and are delivered via the post office. I carefully read the instructions as the ants had large mandibles and didn't look too happy about being in such a small space. Into the refrigerator they went for just a few minutes and they I easily popped them into the habitat. It's been almost two months now and they have created a lot of tunnels and most are still alive. The gel in which they live is also their food. This is a nice feature since I don't like lifting the lid any more than I have to. These little guys want out. In case you are wondering, you DO NOT get a queen so the ants will live their life expectancy and then die. You don't get baby ants without a queen. The kit comes with instructions for collecting ants yourself, but I live in Texas where the only ants are fire ants. The instruction book tells you to NOT collect fire ants, nor army ants. The book that comes with the habitat has some basic ant info and was a fun read. If you are going to give this as a gift to a child, order the ants in advance because it could take a month to 6 weeks for your ants to arrive.
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