We are sorry this bad and unfortunate luck has affected you. We advise all customers to use our TRACKED LIVE ARRIVAL service when shipping queens to help reduce this risk to both the colony and to you as the customer. ​ The Benefits of TRACKED LIVE ARRIVAL SHIPPING include: You will get a next day service (in most cases). You receive a text and/or email with your delivery time on a fully tracked service You benefit from our live arrival guarantee You benefit from our 12 hour guarantee The Faster service will help your queen arrive much better rested and faster.

Queens as live animals is excluded from the Distance Selling Regulations rights of return. However we have our Happy Queen Guarantee to give you protection from this if you have used our tracked service as your shipping method. if you have any concerns about your queen or colony;: ​ There is a security seal on the end of the test tube, DO NOT BREAK THIS SEAL as this is your acceptance of the colony in their current condition! This security seal is the only way that we know your colony is exactly how it left us and all returns will be with this intact. This is your queens number and its number matches our records and your certificate. PLEASE NOTE: Only the life of your queen is covered by this warranty. Worker count is an approximation but used to determine the developmental stage of a colony. Workers who do not make the journey are not covered by any warranty. If (in the unlikely event) we have miscounted your workers, we will refund the difference of their value once a clear video has been sent showing the workers in focus as well as the security seal intact. Your Guarantee is valid providing: you selected the LIVE ARRIVAL TRACKED service for your colony to be shipped with. Your security seal is intact You did not miss your delivery, this is crucial... if you do she must be picked up the same day delivery was attempted. Your queen must have been delivered to physical address (Not Virtual - Virtual addresses guarantee finishes when the queen reaches her first destination) You have contacted us as soon as you have concerns for your queen (within 12 hours of delivery) Zoomed in on your phone to ensure she is not just cold from the trip, if her antennae move - she is all good. You will need to: Send us a clear video by email/messenger/instagram of your queen Send us a clear picture of the queens tube (and of the security seal at the end) If she did not make it we will ask you to return her to us (at our cost) and we will replace her and send a replacement too you. If we have no more of the species then we will refund your payment to us as credit to be placed against a new queen of your choice. Please note, once the 12 hour window has lapsed we no longer offer a warranty on your queen or workers count difference. We may extend this warranty however up to 7 days providing a queen with concerns (not worker count) is notified to us within the 12 hour window. We reserve the right to not extend any warranty should we feel it not required.

Sales to overseas countries are sadly excluded from our live arrival guarantee(s) Purchasers are responsible for their own countries import laws and requirements. We are not able to keep abreast of so many countries individual requirements and as such we cannot accept responsibility for delays, seizures or deaths during the process. You are required to fulfill any legal requirements and we simply "pack and ship". If you would like a faster shipping service than Royal Mail (and your local provider) then please contact us to quote an Express service. SALES CANCELLATIONS AND FEES If your queen or colony is not delivered as you have not paid customs fees on your parcel or imported correctly, a returned queen will have a restocking fee of 20%+shipping cost. This will be deducted from any refund. If your queen is returned to us dead, no refund will be permitted. IF WE HAVE TO CANCEL YOUR ORDER If we have to cancel your order because you have ordered a queen or colony during a time we do not ship, or on the incorrect service, then there will be a 5% fee deducted from your refund. This is because payment providers no longer rebate the fees and a 2.5% is charged to us for the transaction and again for the refund.

This can happen for a number of reasons. It could be that the delivery was refused, address was incorrect and not found, or overseas customs have been unable to recover duties for whatever reason. In this instance we have policies in place to cover returned ants: Returned Ants In the event your colony is returned to us at any point of its journey to you, we will refund the colony (providing they are alive) less a £15 restocking fee and less whatever shipping was charged. We charge this fee to cover the return charges set by the courier. If your Colony is not alive, no refund is permitted. If your colony value is less that £15 (including dead colonies whose value is £0) then we will absorb this fee as there is no refund to be made.

QUEENS WHO HAVE CONCERNS We do not cover your worker count outside of the first 12 hours of delivery, however If you have accepted delivery of your queen (12 hours have lapsed since your LIVE ARRIVAL SERVICE delivery and you have not informed us of any concerns) and you have any concerns about your colony then the best thing you can do is complete our help form located here as this will provide us with all of the information we need to help you. It is vital that you give us as much information as possible. The form also allows you to upload you pictures and videos which will help explain what you are telling us. We can use this to advise you on our advice moving forward. ​ QUEENS WHO HAVE DIED If your Queen dies within 7 days of delivery and you have used the Tracked shipping service then provided you have kept the correct environment for her, we will accept her return to us at the buyers expense for 50% of her value as credit on your account. Please note that this only applies to queens kept in sealed test tubes. workers are excluded from this guarantee and only the queens cost without workers will apply.

If your colony is 7 days or more past delivery and you require advice then we are here for you. Simply complete the help form here and it will save a lot of time with emails back and forth. Once completed we can then assist you. ​ We do not accept returns on colonies on or past 7 days with the customer as we are no longer in control of the conditions, food, quality or habitat of your colony. Sometimes, in some cases queens will not make it. We are all learning how to keep this delicate species. Try not to feel bad or sad, try again and we can help you to isolate what the cause may have been to hopefully prevent it happening again in the future. We do however cover the fertility of your fresh queen for up to 6 months, see the fertility question for info.

FERTILITY GUARANTEE ONLY APPLIES TO CUSTOMERS WHO USED THE LIVE ARRIVAL SERVICE We have a 180 day fertility guarantee in place on fresh queens who have never had workers. If you feel your queen is not fertile, we have a very structured way of handling the issue providing she is: -Must have been shipped using the tracked service and not using standard shipping which may have risked the queen -Within 180 days since purchase - Alive - Purchased as a fresh queen with brood (or as a split from an inbreeding colony which we have done in-house and notified you on on the certificate by the marking *SC) - Has never had workers or developed brood in the time since owning her These conditions must all be satisfied. If your queen was provided as a colony or has had workers then she was fertile and environmental conditions outside of our control could have made her infertile. This is not covered by our guarantee. If eligible simply; - Get in contact with us on info@antantics.co.uk providing your order number and queen i.d number - We will send you a form link to complete about how you have been keeping her - Return your queen to us (ensuring you use a tracked method of posting) - We keep your queen in our incubator for a period of no less than 4 weeks - Ensuring our feeding cycle is maintained we take a picture on the first and last day to check brood development If your queen is considered infertile If nothing develops, we can conclude she is not fertile. We will then replace your queen for you (or subject to stock being with us for the same species, please note workers are excluded in any guarantee and your replacement colony my differ from your original purchase slightly. If stock is not available we will provide you with credit against your queen which can be used to purchase another species on our store) If your queen is considered fertile We will send you an invoice for the return shipping and she can come home. We will let you know the feeding routines, humidity and temperatures we used so you can replicate it at home and continue the progress.

Sadly these items are perishable and also not covered under the Distance Selling Regulations. But do not worry, your items will be sent quickly and fresh.

You can return any unused and new non-perishable and non-living items to us within 28 days of receipt for a full refund or exchange. Items must be returned at the buyers expense and can be sent to Ant Antics Ltd | Morgrug Cymru, Priory Street, Carmarthen, SA31 1LS. Items returned must be in a new and unused state with all relevant items intact. It must be in a sealed condition and be able to be re-sold. Items as part of a bundle cannot be split and must be returned as an entire bundle. Returns of part bundles will be refused. ​ In the case of returns, if your items are in a used condition and not as-new then we reserve the right to retain the item until return shipping is paid for by the customer so we can send it back to the customer. ​ Any refunds will be made within 3 to 5 days of receipt and all refunds will exclude the original shipping cost paid on the order. (this is because although you are returning the items you have changed your mind on, the shipping did happen and we were still charged for it)

If your non-perishable and non-living item develops a fault we would not expect within usual and careful use then please contact us ASAP where we can arrange a return for you. Faulty items will be repaired or replaced at our cost. Return shipping of faulty products is covered by Ant Antics Limited. Typically we can accept returns for repair on a fault within 90 days of purchase.

As live animals are excluded from the distance selling regulations, we do not accept returns on your queens or colonies. This is because their welfare and conditions are outside of our control from the moment they leave us. We will only accept a return on a colony if we have instructed you to do so within 12 hours of delivery following concerns. In all cases of death on delivery, we will require the colony returned to us in its original sealed state to offer a a store credit note for their value after verifying it was not tampered with. We do not offer any form of physical refund, in any case for live animals purchased at Ant Antics.

We are more than just an ant pet store, we are different. Notice you can see our address, our email, our information... no shady website, no mystery offerings, no low quality "Cheap" queens. We are a premium brand selling the healthiest queens, legitimate queens, imported Legally!, with this comes a cost, but its peace of mind worth an extra £ or 2 But boasting aside we do this because we love ants and believe that all keepers deserve a brand they can trust for that. We are a small team of 3 all working round the clock to answer your enquiries and prepare your queens. No complaints here however, we love it!

Ant Antics is very strict in our position on this, we are a responsible seller and a responsible buyer. DUG UP COLONIES & BROOD BOOSTING We do not condone or purchase any colony or queen that has been taken from a colony already established. This practice is common and we believe colony theft is single handedly the cruelest thing you can do to a colony. Stealing a queen to leave her workers queen-less and die out without her is horrific. Likewise you would never know how old a queen is, what if she was to be at the end of her life? We only sell fresh queens or colonies raised in house from a single fresh queen. We do not buy colonies from suppliers what-so-ever to ensure they are not boosted before arrival. As such we do not take part in brood boosting. WE HAVE ONE EXCEPTION We do however have one species where we add Formica brood from an established colony, this is the Formica Sanguinea (The Slave Maker), she needs a few pupae to begin her colony and then she will lay perfectly on her own.

Put simply, we love ants... all ants! In detail however, we recognise some members of the comminity are sceptical on companies selling exotics. But people have had exotic (non native) fish, guinnea pigs, hamsters, lizards and snakes (to name a few) for decades. We believe we should be able to responsibly enjoy the species we love and providing they are imported with care and in complience of the Laws then we can do so. We are fortunate in the UK with our cold winters and freezing ground, non hibernating exotic ants would not survive a winter here, but our advice does not change; NEVER release your ants into the wild, its illegal and cruel. Send them back to us and we will find them a loving home.

We highly advise you do NOT place an ant colony in a gel ant farm. There are several reasons for this, all of which come down to the welfare of the ants themselves. 1) The farm is too bright, ants (especially the queen and brood) need darkness, this darkness provides safety and security. Gel will make your queen stressed. 2) The farm is too moist. Ants need to regulate humidity and moisture by moving around the nest, this is especially true of brood at various times of day and stages of development. The high moisture of gel will prevent this. 3) Mold. Thats right, all this "wet" and we have a mold outbreak which happens extremely quickly and can kill entire colonies. 4) The gel is NOT FOOD. They look great in the marketing dont they with their "no need to add food", but ants will not eat this and if they do in desparation then its not what they need. We often get the question whether you can breed ants in a gel farm. A gel farm is not suitable for that! What are gel farms for? Great question, Gel farms are for the observation of ants. These companies suggest you buy some workers and watch them dig tunnels. We think this practice to us is also cruel. "Stealing" ants from a colony and containing them sends them crazy, without their queen they will quite literally loose it and start digging deep to find her scent. At most these ants will live 3 to 6 months until they all die and you have to start again. Please, love your ants and dont use Gel. If you already own a Gel farm, please consider removing the gel and replacing it with a suitable sand-loam or Earth. It is saveable so dont worry :)

In Short, We do not believe it is at all. In the wild, a queen ant actually has a 5% to 8% chance of sucessfully founding her colony. The ants know this and release millions, billions of future queens annually to maintian populations. So many queens mean that ant populations continue to grow and evolve creating new generations of super colonies and crossing oceans to inhabit new lands. As a result we at ant antics purchase queens within our forcast, we do so responcibly and do not overbuy our stock. This means that we make such an small dent in wild populations that you could do more damage just walking through a carpark on nuptial day.

Within reason we would love to help you out. All antkeepers have done this before, we get excited and far too tempted by the amount of queens around us that we take 10 instead of 1. Dont worry though, if we have space avalible we can arrange postage to us for your surplus queens and we will find them new homes. Alternatively you could wait for them to found a small colony (for natives only) and release them into your garden to help local populations. If you have a non native species however, contact us and do not release them into your garden.

Difficult question. Where we would love to commit, we just cannot guarantee this, queens have annual nuptial flights and if our stock is sold outside of this window we may have to wait 12 months to get any more (if we even do). The only advice we can offer is that if you see a queen you love then our advice is, dont delay and buy her today!

Not a problem, drop us a message and we will guide you through our selection by asking you a few questions, we can help you narrow down your choice.

If you are finding it difficult to select a nest then please drop us a message and let us know what species you want to house, we can help you choose.

If a queen is in stock (or shortly coming into live stock) we will reserve her for a 50% non-refundable deposit. Once you have settled the deposit we will hold her for up to 3 weeks for you, thereafter care charges of £4.75 per week apply. Colonies or queens not settled within 6 weeks will be returned to sale and the deposit is forfeited.

Paying is easy, we accept credit card and debit card payments through our payment partner SumUp. We also accept Cryptocurrency & pay weekly and monthly solutions like Laybuy and Klarna. We do not accept PayPal at this time

Of course, drop us an email and we can see what it is you offer. We work with a select group of other UK stores who may be interested too. We always ensure our trade partners are well rehursed in the Legal, Safe and Legitimate trade of species before we conduct any business.

For Queen ants We would love to work with you. We happily supply trade pricing to other retail stores. We are a responsible seller and we only conduct trade with other companies. To order from us you will just need to supply us with your details, company registration number and proof of address. We can then share with you our available stock for wholesale. For Physical Items This can be done. If you like something we sell, a product we have developed or an item we have then get in touch. We cannot guarantee that we will have the availability to supply you but its worth asking, especially in the case of physical items like nests, foods and supplies. If you think the Ant Antics brand is as fantastic as we do then we would be proud of you stocking some of our items.

A Franchise is perfect for a start up store who wants a physical location that fits into our brand and ethos. If you feel you are "Ant Antics" enough then we want to hear from you. Our franchise opportunities is for people who wish to open a physical location, we will permit a web store but only in conjunction with a bricks and mortar operation. If you are overseas and wishing to use our brand name and claim territory for your country the also get in touch. Our packages are fair and reasonable, we do not charge you a large franchise fee upfront (you need that money to open your shop), instead you only pay a small monthly premium depending on your turnover. Please note: Franchise contracts are for a minimum of 3 years and lock the purchase of stock exclusively to items, ants and products supplied by Ant Antics.