Man, well this was seriously unexpected, and before I even realized what I had, I’d suddenly
found myself in a bit of a predicament.
I have a new fire ant queen, and she’s already started to lay eggs!
Now I’m trying not to panic just yet, but if you’ve been following this channel for
awhile, you already know that, though things look nice and peaceful inside this queen’s
founding test tube right now, things will look much more different for this queen fire
ant and her growing fire ant colony-in-the-making very, very soon.
For the past few days, I’ve been struggling to decide whether or not we should keep her,
let her go, find her a new home somewhere, or pursue some other drastic course of action
like ant euthanasia.
I’ll explain everything but either way, we need to seriously talk guys, and I’d
love to hear your opinions and get your help on this.
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Alright, AC Family, I know some of you might be aware that I already own a massive fire
ant colony, named the Phoenix Empire on this channel, but before any knee-jerk reactions
regarding what we should do with this fire ant queen, please hear me out as I go over
our options, my thoughts, and what repercussions we face for each, so please guys keep on watching
until the end when we determine the best course of action for this new queen ant I caught.
But before I go over my thoughts, let’s have a look at her!
Here she was just a few days ago when I caught her - a single pregnant queen fire ant, the
royal seed to a future fire ant colony.
I found her wandering on the ground in Antopia, our yard at the Ant House.
Totally forgot it was fire ant nuptial flight season!
Now, a “nuptial flight”, you ask?
Yes, if you’re new to ants, when ants breed, they have what’s called a nuptial flight
when virgin queen ants with wings emerge from the nest in a huge ant festival along with
male ants, who are also born with wings.
These winged ant reproductives then fly off and mate, after which the males die, and each
queen, now fertilized and full of developing eggs, breaks off her wings to embark on a
search for a suitable place to start her own colony underground.
And that’s the stage at which this queen was caught.
She was wingless and off on a search for a place to dig a hole to start laying her eggs.
I placed her inside this test tube setup, which is what we ant keepers do to incubate
our newly caught pregnant queen ants, as it simulates the claustral chamber she would
have made in the wild, and it is here in this test tube, where she would found her new colony.
AC Family, look at her!
Isn’t she amazing?
I truly love the colour of fire ant queens.
Cherry red with accents of black.
What should we name her?
Let me know in the comments, guys.
She’s already made herself at home and is having a drink of water from the cotton blocking
the water reserve.
The nuptial flight must have left her thirsty.
Now, I can’t imagine what this transition must be like for her, going from living her
entire life in a massive ant colony underground, always taken care of by millions of fire ant
sisters, and now suddenly being all alone here in her claustral chamber.
But I knew Mother Nature had equipped her with all the tools she needed to fulfill her
ultimate destiny.
Looking at her fat gaster, I knew it wouldn’t be long before she would lay her first set
of eggs.
And you know what guys?
I was right.
Low and behold after checking up on this queen just two days later this was the amazing sight
I saw.
Eggs, and a lot of them!
Wow!
Our fire ant queen had clearly been busy over the past 48 hours!
AC Family, this was it.
She had begun the process of colony founding.
I believe I can count about 30 or so eggs in there.
She constantly licks these eggs clean with her antibiotic saliva to ensure they don’t
mold or grow foul.
She also licks all surfaces and her legs with it so everything remains disinfected.
Now guys what happens from here on in is one of the most beautiful and dramatic things
in nature ever.
So get this: in a few days, these eggs will hatch into larvae, and I think that larger
egg there in the upper corner is about ready to hatch, but what’s truly astounding is
how the queen feeds them!
See that big hump that makes up her back?
In there, are the great muscles that powered her wings for nuptial flight, and well, she
doesn’t really need those muscles anymore, since she no longer has wings, so her body
is now breaking down all that wing muscle tissue, and converting it into a nutritious
soup, which she regurgitates and feeds to her first set of larvae.
It’s kind of like ant milk, I guess, but it isn’t produced by mammary glands like
in mammals, so let’s just call it a “Cream of Wing Muscle Soup”, if you will.
The queen herself also subsists off this broken down muscle tissue over the next two or three
weeks, as the larvae grow and mature into pupae, then emerge as the very first set of
worker ants, known as the nanitics.
This period raising the nanitics to adulthood is super critical, because she doesn’t have
an unlimited supply of this “Cream of Wing Muscle Soup” in her body, so she is banking
on these nanitics to survive, in order to immediately take over operations of the ant
colony, by hunting, feeding, and caring for the queen and the brood, expanding the nest,
and keeping the claustral chamber tidy.
For those of you who followed the Phoenix Empire, the fire ants you see here, through
this amazing process of colony founding, you already know this initial stage is truly an
amazing thing to witness and be part of.
Alright, everyone, now before I get into what all of you have been waiting for, i.e. deciding
what to do with this new queen and her brood, I know a lot of you ant keepers out there
are at this exact stage as I am.
That is, many of you have already caught your queen ants, placed them in test tube setups,
and are tagging me on social media, which I love!
Super excited for you, guys, especially for those of you who are new ant keepers and are
housing your first queen ants ever.
I just love all of us keeping pet ants together!
However many of you have expressed frustrations over being unable to find a queen ant, and
if you are one of these individuals still looking for a queen, don't worry!
Let me assure you that ant nuptial flight season just began, and it won’t end until
about October if you’re in North America, Europe, or Asia.
Just be sure to watch my many helpful tutorials on this channel on queen ant hunting and identifying,
as well as what to do once you catch them; or you can visit antscanada.com and pick up
my Ultimate Ant Keeping Handbook ebook which has everything you need to know about ant
keeping, including full nuptial flight schedules and care sheet guides on all the commonly
kept ant species.
You can also find AC Test Tubes, like this one, specially designed for incubating your
newly caught queen ants at founding stage, and pro AC Ant Farm Starter Kits that I also
use for my ants once the queens have workers, all at antscanada.com.
And just a note: We ship worldwide from the US, and offer full email customer support
if you need our help.
Alright so here we go, AC Family!
We have four options for this queen fire ant and brood: Keep, Release, Rehome, or Kill.
Let’s first look over the pros and cons of keeping her:
Some of you might feel having two pet fire ant colonies on the channel might not be a
bad idea.
There could be an opportunity for us to learn if we choose this route.
For instance, we could find out if this new fire ant colony has a different personality
than our Phoenix Empire, if it grows at a different rate, if the workers turn out to
be a slightly different colour, or if it likes the same food.
Perhaps some of you look forward to building another cutting edge paludarium for the new
fire ants, once they get big enough, or perhaps some of you just miss the process of growing
ant colonies from just a single queen ant, which I totally understand because I’m the
exact same way.
There’s nothing like growing new ant colonies from scratch!
Having a second backup fire ant colony might prove beneficial because as some of you might
know, we’re in the midst of completing our Ant House in Antopia an hour away, and our
future Ant Room should be finished in just a few months from now, and though overall
this excites me, it also has been causing me anxiety the closer we get to moving date,
because I still don’t have a plan and feel moving the Ember Islands would be a total
logistical nightmare!
If God forbid, the tank crashes and the fire ants come pouring out during the transport
process, at least we could have a back up fire ant colony, this new queen and her future
minions, which I could just keep in an ant farm setup until we move in.
An AC Ant Farm setup would be much easier to transport to the new Ant House than this
massive paludarium.
The cons of keeping her: Do you think we’re ready to take on a second fire ant colony?
We all know this species is a hard species to keep simply because they’re always trying
to escape, they eat like monsters, and will deliver some very painful stings when working
around them.
They are definitely a serious commitment, but I’m willing to take this on if you guys
are.
And by the way, in case you were wondering, I am not breaking the unwritten ant keeping
code of ethics by making this new fire ant colony and the Phoenix Empire go to war!
Not willing to do that!
That’s cruel and it would be such a waste of hard work growing the ant colonies.
Option #2: Release...
This is my least favourite option because fire ants are invasive where I live.
I surely don’t want to release this queen back in my yard of Antopia as that would be
bad for the ecosystem.
So then “Where could I release her that would make the least ecological impact”
is the question.
I don’t have an answer to that.
Our third option: We rehome her.
I could likely find someone in my area willing to take her.
I’m sure she’d make an ant keeper very, very happy.
Finally, we could opt to humanely kill her.
We could proceed with ant euthanasia simply by sticking her into the freezer, where as
a tropical species she would slowly drift off into a cryogenic sleep, and die the moment
her hemolymph, the technical term for ant blood, crystalizes into ice.
Or we could opt to feed her to my hungry fish, or perhaps to another of my many larger ant
colonies.
They would also happily polish off her eggs.
AC Family, this is it: do please take a quick moment to let me know in the comments which
of these four options you would choose for this queen and her brood and why?
I’ll read through all your suggestions and assess your reasons, and make my final decision
this week, to be announced in next week’s episode.
Whatever happens, I’d like to take this opportunity right now to thank you guys for
all your ant love.
I never imagined there would ever be a global community of over four million of you, just
as invested in these insects as me.
I always felt most of the world sees them as pests that need to be squashed or burned
with a magnifying glass, which may still be true, but regardless, here we are gathered
every week to look more closely at them and open our hearts and minds to understand why
they are such magnificent little creatures, and that AC Family brings me great hope.
I also really appreciate you all for subscribing, and for taking the time to participate to
help me out with these major ant decisions.
Thank you so much.
As always, the fate of this queen ant and her future brood is in our hands.
Let me know what you feel we should do.
It’s ant love forever.
AC Family, did you enjoy today’s episode?
Tune in next week to find out what will be happening to this queen ant and her brood,
by SMASHING that SUBSCRIBE button and BELL ICON now, and hit ALL so you get notified
at every upload.
Also don’t forget to hit the LIKE button every single time including now.
It would really mean a lot to me, guys.
Thank you!
AC Inner Colony, I have left a hidden cookie for you here, if you would like to watch extended
play footage of the new fire ant queen and her brood.
And now it’s time for the AC Question of the Week.
Last week, we asked:
Why are springtails called springtails?
Congratulations to Petstreamtv who answered:
Springtails are called springtails because their bodies have a small spring-like
appendage that they use to jump.
Congratulations Petstreamtv, you just won a free Ultimate Ant Keeping Handbook from
our shop!
In this week’s AC Question of the Week we ask:
What does the queen ant feed her larvae?
Leave your answer in the comments section and you could also win a free Ultimate Ant
Keeping Handbook from our shop!
Hope you could subscribe to the channel as we upload every Saturday at 8AM EST.
Please remember to LIKE, COMMENT, SHARE, and SUBSCRIBE if you enjoyed this video, to help
us keep making more.
It’s ant love forever!