Dab on them
They're aggressive, explosive in numbers.
They've conquered and invaded many areas of the world.
And in a large swarm all people and animals in their path quickly become aware of their presence
by way of their powerful stings that burned like fire.
Many of us have had an innate fascination for ants at some point in our lives;
and perhaps when as far as keeping a pet ant
colony in an ant farm.
But I can tell you.
It takes a little bit of crazy to want to take care of a fire ant colony.
Perhaps I and many of you out there
have that little bit of crazy; because I'm one of many people who keep fire ant colonies as pets.
Greetings everyone and welcome to the AntsCanada and channel.
This video is about my pet fire ant colony and what it's like keeping them.
Let me begin first with a warning:
These ants are definitely not for the faint at heart; and if you have kids or Rowdy pets
I highly recommend not keeping fire ants as their stings can truly inflict tremendous pain and harm or even death if you're allergic.
They are highly aggressive, especially in large numbers; and hard to contain.
I'll go more into that later in the video so stay tuned until the end
I've owned and cared for many species events in the past. And I still have several other and colonies in my possession.
But I've never had an ant colony. Keep me on my toes like fire ants have. These ants are programmed for three simple things
One grow the colony as big as you [can] so you can to
Overpower and eat as much as you can and three sting to death anything that comes in your way no matter. How large or small
To understand fire ants a little better. Let's do a little history
now the fire ants that most people know belong to the genus and
[Solenopsis] and most of us crazy ant Keepers keep one of about four or five different species
the species Solenopsis, Invicta and Solenopsis, Genera actually originated in Central and South America
Have managed to reach many parts of the world through human activities like hitching rides and shipment crates
These ants are among the most widespread and invasive ants
in the u.s
[salon] Obsess Invicta Aka
[Reefa] or
red imported fire ants are
A huge problem and many of you in the us write to me about the abundance of fire ants in [your] area the us government
Is trying to contain the spread of these unwelcome invaders because they out-compete and displace native?
Ants which is not a good thing for the ecosystem
Why have these ants become so successful at taking over the world?
Well, let's take a closer look at their lives
These pet ants of mine are Solenopsis, [Gemin] Adam also known as red tropical fire ants
This happens to be my fifth colony of these guys you
[see] here in the philippines where I'm currently based it's common for first-time and keepers to catch these Super Abundant fire ant Queens
raise them to create colonies
And then when the colonies reach a massive size the ant keepers find it harder and harder to Contain the ants
[and/or] keep up with the feeding and maintenance that come with them. So they end up letting them go; or I
End up taking them in. As far as pet ants
Go they seem [like] everything you would want in a pet ant colony. First off, they grow super fast.
With most species of ants for a colony to get this size, it takes at least a good year or two. But believe it or
not this colony is only a few months old and
Started with just a single pregnant queen end in a week from now this fire
Ant Colony will have increased in size by a third
part of the reason these guys have been so successful at invading various parts of the world is because they can grow to a
Massive size in just a short amount of time and in the ant world the sooner you can get your colony to a massive size
the greater the chance of survival because you can gather more food have more work force to construct Ample housing and take care of the
Young protect the colony better and also out-Compete any competitors for resources in less than a month I predict
I'll probably need to attach [another] [form] aquarium to the [setup] to accommodate the growing colony
Ants go from egg to worker in just a few [short] weeks
And the queen is busy her entire life laying eggs throughout the day
Another thing that an keepers love about these ends is that [they're] semi-nomadic which means they don't live in one place their entire life
these ads have no qualms whatsoever to pick up the colony and move to a completely different location if they need to or
if they find a better home this willingness to move can be a great thing for ant keepers a
little light and heat from a lamp is enough to get a colony to move out of whatever container they may be in and
into a new space
Watch this footage of how a colony of a couple thousand or so fire ants moved into this hybrid nest for Macario
ten minutes later
20 minutes later
Thirty minutes later [it] only took half an hour to transport an entire colony of
Thousands of workers a queen and tons of brew these guys can adapt and adjust
Housing very easily and can even form living rafts using just their bodies that float on water if needed
Which also explains why they've been so successful at invading various parts of the world
Third these ants are voracious eaters. They eat anything I give them on the first day. They moved into their new home
They were more than willing to take a super worm
I
Also feed them feeder cockroaches which they love their success at invading many parts of the world can be
Attributed to their acceptance of various kinds of food
These ads will even eat grains cooked meats
Table Scraps and love sweet stuff like chocolate and even brown sugar water as seen here
Forth if you're like me, and you enjoy seeing ant aggression and predation
these ants never disappoint
Just a few nights ago
Termite elates were flying all over the philippines [and] somehow they get into houses as they search for lights within homes
So what I did was I place the lamp over the ants [outworld] and as the termite elates flew in the fire ants were more
Than willing to take them in for dinner
you
Their regression also gives them the upper hand than competing for territory
Defending themselves from predators and collecting prey food for the colony to eat again making them very good at invading other countries
Overall these ants are designed to survive and all of this sounds cool, right?
Why wouldn't you want to keep fire ants as pets well these four after mentioned fire, ant traits like fast growth willingness to re-home?
wide acceptance of food and aggressive behavior
Can also be bad traits for ant keepers hoping to keep them let's look at their fast growth now because these ants grows so fast
So too must their maintenance
Housing and food intake increase these ants depend on me to clean up their garbage site graveyard as seen here
Look at all those termite Wings
they discard it from the other night ants always establish garbage sites and
Graveyards which the elements and other organisms clean up or break down but in an ant farm?
I need to chime [in] to do the job right now. I only need to do it once every couple of weeks
But in several months from now the duties will need to be done every day
Their second trait their willingness to move also can be a difficult [thing] to deal with as an ant keeper
You see these ants are escape artists and most people keeping fire ants may not have troubles keeping them while the Colony is still small
But soon realize as the colony grows they become harder and harder to contain
When these ants are [underfed] or they need more space
They will constantly be testing the setup for weaknesses until they [manage] to find their way out a breach in the security
They also chew through silicone grout and rubbers
Now I'm not too worried about them escaping this setup
though this solenopsis hybrid setup is designed to house fire ants and these ends can't chew through the materials used in the
Solenopsis hybrid nest this Ac [Outworld] is rounded so the ants can't grab on to the corners to climb out and
This [outworld] is also designed to keep them in by way of an upSide-down band of baby Powder
Along with a well secured metal mesh, lid I find new inexperienced owners of this species who make the mistake of making their own setup
soon become accustomed to coming home to a
Nightmarish room full of Escape ants all busy moving the colony out into a crack in the wall or down the drain in the bathroom
All it takes is a few hours
And they're gone and if the queen moves out you have a big and serious problem
Third the demand for food for a growing colony is great and the ants will
Eventually need large amounts of food daily for a lot of people this can be a challenging job
Especially if you want to provide them their favorite food live insects
Finally their aggression which may at [first] be a source of intrigue and entertainment just may bite you back in the butt
Literally these ants have stingers and can inject an excruciating dose of an alkaloid Venom called Saline
Opsin which causes a painful burning sting which later becomes an iTchy bump that takes days to go away
When working [around] these ants [I] wear surgical gloves
Now what about if you would like to keep fire ants well now
You know what to [expect] if you think you would be up for the challenge of keeping fire ants? Why not give it a try?
otherwise why not subscribe to this channel so [you] can simply follow the progress of this colony until
It also gets to the point where it becomes too big for me to handle and I can film how I release my ants back
into the wild from whence they came
Thanks so much for watching this video on the ever extreme fire ants
What do you think of fire ants let us know in the comments section it's Antlia Forever. Bye
Thanks so much guys for watching our new video on fire ants moving means a lot to us
Be sure to subscribe to this channel if you like what you saw we release a video every first and third Monday of the month
And also if you're planning on keeping [access] [pads] be sure to watch our [ant] Canada tutorial playlist
[it's] got lots of great information on and keeping basics and if you like fire ants don't forget to check out our
Solenopsis Geminid [a] playlist
Finally if you need and keeping products visit us at ant Canada comm we've got lots of information there if you want to do some
Reading on and keeping we also sell ant colonies and key cities
So check our queen ants for sale section
And finally don't forget to join our ant forum with thousands of members from all over the world who Keypads and who love ends
You can connect with them. Please join us guys