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Shipping

We aim to ship your order within 3 working days.

Dispatch days

We ship orders on the following days:

  • Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays

We do not ship on Wednesdays and Fridays.

Order packing and dispatch: 1-3 working days.

Where we ship

United Kingdom

We ship: live ants, live foods, nests, supplies etc.

Other countries

We ship: nests, supplies etc. (we do not ship live animals here).

  • Northern Ireland [CHECK]
  • France
  • Germany
  • Portugal
  • Spain
  • USA
  • Holland
  • Norway
  • Sweden
  • Belgium
  • Italy
  • Australia
  • Austria
  • Denmark
  • Canada
  • and so on

Countries not yet named

We currently do not ship to your country.

We are currently only shipping live ants to the UK. We do not ship live animals outside of the UK.

Cold weather

Standard and live arrival services, United Kingdom only:

  • Green status: Shipping as normal
  • Amber status: Possible dispatch delays (we only ship at +5 degrees overnight in your area)
  • Red status: Shipping suspended due to cold

Check the shipping update banner at the top of the page for today’s status. [CHECK]

Tracked and standard

Standard (snail mail)

Use for non living items. Standard shipping with no guarantee. Dispatches in 2-5 days on a 48 hour service.

This service is for customers who wish to order dry goods and foods on a Royal Mail 48 service.

Purchases where ants are selected and this service is used: we will ship them, but they are excluded from our live arrival guarantees and complimentary items.

Snail mail terms and conditions

If you order living items on this service they will not be covered by any guarantees offered by Ant Antics Limited, as this service is not designed for the shipping of our precious queens.

We will however ship your order if you have selected this shipping, as it is assumed it was a conscious decision. We will also send live ants on a 24 service instead of a 48. However, any losses in transit are the customer’s responsibility.

Tracked (live arrival guaranteed)

Tracked shipping with live arrival guarantee. Dispatches in 1-3 days on a 24 hour service.

Purchases with living items are sent with a tracked service, email updates and a delivery window. This quicker service offers a live arrival guarantee and complimentary items if in stock.

This service is for customers who wish to have a live arrival guarantee and fertility guarantee on their colony, to protect themselves against any unfortunate death on the road or infertility of a fresh queen.

Live arrival

Tracked shipping guarantee terms and conditions

Your queen will be covered in full for 12 hours post arrival, offering a free return and replacement of your queen, providing:

  • you did not miss her delivery (if you did, you must have collected the same day), and
  • you do not break the security seal on her test tube.

In the event we have sold out, you will be given credit.

You will also get 3 day coverage for part of your queen’s value (workers and return shipping excluded). [CHECK]

UK returns and failed deliveries

Returned ants (standard and tracked)

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, plus 5.5% transaction fees and whatever shipping was originally charged. We charge this fee to cover the return charges set by the courier, the settling period while a queen recovers from her journey and cannot be resold, as well as transaction fees. If your colony is not alive, no refund is permitted.

The £15 fee is still payable to cover repacking, feeding, monitoring and care if you want your colony re-shipped. This £15 will need to be paid along with your return shipping label.

Live animal refunds or customer returns

We do not offer any rights of return on live animals sold on our store. Once a colony leaves us we have no control over the conditions or treatment of the colony and cannot accept returns on them.

The only instance a return could take place is if the colony still has its security seal in place and is returned within 12 hours of receiving them. In this instance we will apply credit to the customer’s account for the colony (after the restocking fee of £10 plus shipping is deducted). [CHECK]

Shipping to Europe

We are only shipping nests, foods and accessories to the EU. No live animals. Dispatch by Royal Mail or local post, shipped within 5 working days.

Sales to overseas countries are shipped using an international service through Royal Mail (or faster courier if selected). Your arrival time will vary.

Typical arrival time: EU, 5 to 9 days.

If these times are too slow, please contact us for a personalised courier shipping quote.

Terms of service for overseas shipping

Orders received are shipped as they are received. If a customer tries to order queen ants or colonies, the order will be shipped without them and the colony will be refunded (less the 5% transaction charge and £10 administration fee, which pays for our time in dealing with the order and its refund).

Returned goods

In the event your order is returned to us at any point of its journey to you, we will refund the order value after subtracting the original shipping fee and a 5% transaction fee to cover the charges we received for your payment and refund.

Shipping price

This depends on your country. Visit the checkout to see more information on your shipping costs.

Shipping to the rest of the world

We are only shipping nests, foods and accessories to the rest of the world. No live animals. Dispatch by Royal Mail or local post, shipped within 5 working days.

Sales to overseas countries are shipped using an international service through Royal Mail (or faster courier if selected). Your arrival time will vary.

Typical arrival time: rest of the world, 7 to 14 days.

If these times are too slow, please contact us for a personalised courier shipping quote.

Terms of service for overseas shipping

Orders received are shipped as they are received. If a customer tries to order queen ants or colonies, the order will be shipped without them and the colony will be refunded (less the 5% transaction charge and the £10 admin fee on it).

Returned goods

In the event your order is returned to us at any point of its journey to you, we will refund the order value after subtracting the original shipping fee and a 5% transaction fee to cover the charges we received for your payment and refund.

Shipping price

This depends on your country. Visit the checkout to see more information on your shipping costs.

Fees

Due to the number of people who ignore the multiple warnings that we do not ship live ants overseas, there is a £10 admin charge plus 5% fee on orders made for live ants. This helps us with paying for the time it takes to resolve this and make the refund to you.

Store services

Current status of our services [CHECK]:

  • Customer telephone enquiries: open
  • Customer email enquiries: within 24 hours
  • Store visits: closed
  • Order collections: open
  • Order packing and dispatch: 1-3 working days
  • New order acceptance on website: open as normal