I received one of these ant farms for Christmas last year and waited all winter for the ants. Once we got them they went nuts!! The entire family enjoyed watching these busy workers dig and dig. But after a few months they just stopped digging. A few died but the others just stood around. I let that go on a few weeks even after poking a couple new holes on the top of the gel but they just would not dig any longer. So I let them go and ordered a second batch and they dug like crazy for a couple months then just stopped.

The tunnel system they left behind is amazing. There is a product made by antworks called "Antworks sculpture kit". It consist of a illuminated base and a two part resin. After the ants are done digging you rinse the ant farm out with water, let dry and mix and pour the resin in the gel with tunnels. It fills up the tunnels and hardens into a hard clear plastic. You rinse the gel away and you have a very nice illuminated work of art. Just do a google search for antworks products. You can even get replacement gel for the antfarm to do it all over again.

Pretty cool educational toy. The ant farm is a whole lot smaller than I anticipated, but it's still interesting. Out of 20 ants shipped to me, only 8 made it here alive. The cool part was that the alive ants sequestered their dead comrades into a makeshift graveyard and then walled them off in gel. It took them about 5 days to start digging, but once they started it was fascinating stuff. Thumbs up.

I got this for Christmas 07, and just got my ants (summer 08), since I did not want them to die in the cold. I ordered from the form in the back of the book, and 19/25 ants survived the journey. Not bad for a couple of bucks. But I wanted to warn everyone:

This stuff is Gel. It moves, depending on how it sits. So for the last several months, I've had it in the box, sitting on its side. All the gel separated from from the edge, and left a huge area for the ants to crawl along the side. Its neat to see the ants up close, but all they are doing right now is tearing the side apart. Had I known the gel separated, I could have easily pushed it back, since its essentially Jello consistency. This was completely my fault, so I might get a new one eventually just to see how its really supposed to work.

So I would recommend to anyone who might get this during the winter. If you are going to store it for some reason, make sure you store it standing up, so the gel stays put.

I bought this for my husband (a science teacher) to sit in his classroom for kids to look at. So for that purpose it is rather smalll; I wish would have purchased the connectable ones due to size. However, it's a very neat product!

Fascinations ANTW2 Antworks Illuminated

I have had the most fun watching the ants work and build the tunnels through the gel substance. I have spent more time with this "toy" than anything in recent history. I have always been interested in science and biology, but nothing compares to this ant farm. My friends laughed at me when I said I was getting an ant farm (I'm 42), but once I showed them this one and all the work the ants had done in just a few days, they too were amazed. This item could easily grab the attention of any child and perhaps spark an interest in studying more about ants or other living creatures. Perhaps your child (or even you) would love one of these, and at this price, you can't beat it. The best part is once the ants die (about 2 or 3 months), you still have their work to admire. Turn on the lights and just look at the glistening tunnels. It's fantastic!