Collecting Ants

[Robi]

I got the inspiration from Demonicgamergirls post here: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=33524

To start out I believe the current ant system is flawed. Aphids are not found in a colony, they would be located on nearby plants and the ants would be harvesting them like cattle for their sugary excrement. What exactly is the ant empress? All I can assume is a new, un-mated ant queen with her wings still attached, however the image depicts no wings whatsoever. Also, the ant queen herself SHOULD be the rarest find in an ant hill as in most colonies there is only one queen. Why are there no drones? There should also be a Ant Drone that can be found, which would rival the empress in rarity since most colonies don't produce as many drones as they do fertile queens. Which brings me to my actual suggestion: Ant Breeding.

It would be a skill following foraging, and would allow the collection and breeding of ants. In order to successfully begin an ant colony, one would have to find the "Ant Empress" which should be called the "Winged Queen Ant" and a Winged Ant Drone. After finding both, you would place them in a container and they would mate, giving you the Fertile Queen Ant. At this point you would now need to place her in a Suitable contained.

The Formicarium (A nice word for saying "jar of ants")
Would require 2 pieces of glass, 4 pieces of dirt, and 1 liter of water. It would be a liftable object which would have to be located indoors. Each Formicarium would have a 8x8 storage area to place the newly mated queen. She would begin her egg-laying process which would be quite time consuming, she would first lay Ant Eggs, which would be useless by themselves and after a week they would evolve into Larvae which would require sustenance and begin eating ever 48 hours. After one week they would become ant Pupae, which is the last step before birth. Pupae don't take as long and will grow into adult ants in 3 days. The adult ants would include, Ant Workers (most common, increase breeding speed of the colony) Ant Soldier (curio) Winged Ant Queen (to begin another colony) Winged Ant Drone (to begin another colony.)

Obviously the queens and drones would be relatively rare to make the whole system less overpowered. The purpose of the whole thing is to be able to quality grind ant curios, and for people like me; enjoy a hobby inside a hobby. The whole system would take a long time and require buckets of honey to keep it moving, which wouldn't allow mass producing curios.


Any criticism would be good, especially constructive. What do you guys think?