Ant Farms and Their Successors
It doesn’t seem long ago, but in fact it’s probably nearly fifty years ago that I built my first Ant Farm. My dad showed me how to do it. We used two sheets of glass from an old derelict greenhouse and some thin strips of wood to separate them by about 1.5mm or three thirty-seconds of an inch as it used to be – I don’t know where the strips of wood came from. We put some slightly damp, coarse builders’ sand between the plates, then stuck the whole sandwich together with some sort of glue. I don’t know what it was called but it had a very distinctive smell. A bit like cats pee.
But now it’s all so different. You can buy ready-made ant farms that your kids can have up and running in no time. It’s all part of the instant gratification society. I have mixed feelings about this. One the one hand it gives kids who don’t have the facilities or the wherewithal to build such a thing to actually get involved with insects and their behaviour. On the other, the sheer fun of using your imagination to source the parts, of using your hands to build it and then getting it set up and running is missing. For me actually building the item was half the fun. It was the same with model aeroplanes, it was the building I enjoyed – I was too frightened to fly them in case they broke.
Now three-dimensional ant habitats and even illuminated transparent gel ant farms are available. Of course, there’s nothing to stop you, or your kids, building one if they want to – it’s certainly a lot cheaper. But if it’s instant grat you’re after then the world is your oyster on the web.
