Nature Gift Store 1 Tube of Live Ants Plus Ant Food and Honey Treat: Ant Habitat Kit Refill

great buy! I had just got into farming ants and purchased from them and the ants were shipped and delivered quickly, of course as quick as one can do from the opposite sides of the country, Washington state, to New York State where I am.I did order two tubes of 25 ants in each and unfortunately again out of the sellers control be it they went through a hot state or were handled incorrectly by shippers or nature, one of the two tubes were dead but I emailed and within an hour had a response back from them saying they are shipping the replacement tube of ants, they arrived on time and not only did they replace the one tube of 25 but sent me two tubes of 25! they went above and beyond and my ants are thriving!great buy for kids who are interested in ants and ill say they are awesome to watch!

I ordered these for my daughter for our new gel ant farm last week, they were not supposed to be here until closer to her birthday, but they hot here sooner, after paying for ants ($7) and even more for shipping ($8), which they were only mailed 1st class USPS not overnight or even priority, which at that postal rate, it should have been priority, they were received in a bubble envelope, so nothing to protect them from cold or heat, they say they guarentee them during that 7 day period, but weather changes and the heat of inside a mail truck for days!!! Come on, really, so mine got here early, so the weather guarentee doesn't even apply here based off the supposed delivery date because you first can't rely on weather reports 2 weeks in advance, which is what I was expecting, but it got here today, so over a week early, so how was I supposed to predict the weather everywhere they are traveling in between the 2000 mile journey of the address in WA state???? YOU CAN'T!! IT'S NOT LOGICAL!! AND all but 4 were dead. The rest were just pieces and parts of ant bodies, so either they ate each other or they got shaken around so hard they fell apart! Not the way you should ship them, if it's in the summer or winter. Nor should you have to pay $8 for a $1 shipping first class USPS cost. They also need to put VENOMOUS right up top on order details. Now the ants I bought last week now cost over $26 now plus shipping, that's more than $1 per ant, at that price they better be overnighted with a refrigerated pak.

Great seller. I ordered these at the same time as I ordered the ant habitat (didn't wait for the coupon) and they arrrived a few days later. I was paying close attention to the temperature but my first vial arrived with all the ants dead. Seller prompty shipped a replacement order and gave me TWO vials to ensure good results. We had only one dead ant in each, which I consider to be very good!I carefully read all of these reviews, as well as the reviews for the sand habitat I chose, and kept the ants in the fridge until they weren't moving. For me, that was 35 minutes. They don't have much mass so they warm up quickly, and when I brought them out and checked them at 20 minutes they got so warm they woke up completely and thus the second 15 minutes.Having read all of the reviews, I saw so many mentions of stings and ants escaping, I came up with a plan. I placed the ant farm in the BATHTUB before I opened the vial to put them in the paper funnel. I also wore leather gardening gloves. Everything everyone says about them crawling up the paper funnel is true. It is also the case that they wake up at different times. There's definitely a delay between the first ant coming out of the vial and the last. I made the funnel long and tall and jammed it all the way down (making sure it was wide enough that they could still get through it) and even put tape on the side so it would keep its shape. But having to bounce the funnel up and down to knock down the ants that were climbing up destroyed the opening at the narrow end, and they couldn't get out it anymore. So it didn't really work out!In messing with the funnel I noted that the few ants that fell into the tub couldn't climb its walls. So I felt safe (and, besides, should things really go south I could always turn on the faucet and dispose of them... but they couldn't climb the walls and that wasn't necessary). And ultimately I dispensed with the paper funnel idea and had my leather gloves and the vial and the ant farm-in-bathtub setup, and just took off the cap and tipped and tapped them into the opening. The ants that fell outside the habitat ran around my bathtub merrily and I scooped them up at a time at my leisure using the tip of the vial, and then tapped them from the vial into the opening. Every once in a while I would switch to a different opening, so that they were dispersed evenly. Having them run around harmessly was easy, and my five year old could stand outside the tub and watch from a safe distance. I don't know if everyone's bathtub would work as well, but I thought I'd pass the suggestion along. For us, it was a success!

Lots of dead ants upon arrival :(

The media could not be loaded. Of course there's always a concern when you're dealing with living things, and some reviews said they received dead ants... But my experience was perfect. The ants arrived alive and well! I DID FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS EXACTLY! I watched my mailbox daily, so when they arrived they'd only been in the mailbox less than an hour. They were in a white envelope marked Open Immediately ~ so I did. The 2 plastic tubes of ants were taped to an instruction card. Since they came 4 days earlier than expected (they were for my grandson's birthday on Saturday, and they arrived on Tuesday) I decided to keep them temporarily in a glass canning jar with a screen on the lid, so he could set the ant farm up and add them himself. I put a small wadded up ball of papertowel moistened with water in the bottom of the jar, so they'd have water without drowning them. Then I put the tubes of ants in the refrigerator (which is 38 degrees F.) for 10 minutes, not 15 minutes. They were still moving a bit, but very slow. Just right for tapping them down to the bottom of the tube, removing the orange stopper, and dropping them in the jar, (which they can't quite climb to the top!) The orange stopper on the tube was really stuck-on tight!! So I had to use a kitchen towel to get a good grip on it, twist it HARD to get it to come off. I think they're going to do fine until Saturday. I'll do a follow-up review in a week to let everyone know how it went :-D Oh! also the store is WONDERFUL with email! I've emailed them several times, and I get a response within hours, or minutes! GREAT Service. Signed, happy customer "Joy"