Guys, sound the trumpets!
Prepare the banquet!
Something special happened this week!
The royal nanitics are finally here!
Our new beloved green queen ant, whom we’ve named the Jade Empress and have been following
over the past month on her journey to founding her colony, finally welcomes her very first
worker ants this week!
I’m so proud of her and of us for making it this far, because this species of ant,
known as weaver ants, are notoriously hard to get started in captivity from just a pregnant
queen ant, as we’ve done here!
It’s been one month since we first caught our Jade Empress and she laid eggs for us,
and finally, today we’re going to meet our very first weaver ant workers, as well as
discuss what our next steps should be, because I’ll be needing your help and opinions,
to ensure our young fledgling colony has the best chance at success, to hopefully become
our future thriving and epic weaver ant kingdom, living gloriously as these ants do, within
the trees.
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Welcome to the AC Family!
Enjoy!
In the darkened cavernous space that surrounded the founding chamber of our Jade Empress,
all was quiet, save the sounds of tree frogs, crickets, and nocturnal insects chorusing
in the distance.
Where she was, who knows?
All that mattered now was the humble arrival of Chip, her very first nanitic worker ant.
Hi, there Chip!
Welcome to the Antiverse!
We’ve been eagerly expecting you.
Chip here is only a few hours old, and is already taking on brood care duties, tending
to this developing pupa.
Now, Chip doesn’t know it yet, but she is the first of an upcoming fleet of VIP, or
rather ‘VIA” worker ants, known as the nanitics, whose very important work will make
the difference between weather or not this entire ant colony will succeed and turn into
the millions we hope they will, or fail and completely die out.
We’ll be working closely together with Chip and her upcoming fellow nanitics, to pioneer
the growth of this colony, but just a heads up if you’re new, I want us all to be on
the same page and manage our expectations here, because this is all going to be a very
difficult journey for us and these weaver ants, since this ant species, as mentioned
earlier is extremely tough to get started from just this founding stage, which is why
I am elated that we’ve already come this far in the founding process.
I do know however that together with all of your help, AC Family, we’ll manage to guide
these ants on their road to proliferation into the weaver ant colony of our dreams!
But first, AC Family, now that the very first nanitic has arrived, and more nanitics arriving
shortly later on in the video, we can now technically call this a legit ant colony,
and so I’m pleased to announce, it’s time for something big!
I’m taking names, guys!
What should we name this new weaver ant colony of ours?
Let me know your name suggestions in the comments and your AC Senate and I will choose our top
5 favourites for all of us to vote on in our next video!
I can’t wait to hear your names, and if you can’t think of one now, feel free to
give one later as we learn more about these weaver ants in this video!
So before we meet Chip further and see how she’s been working closely with our Jade
Empress to care for the growing colony, I wanted to do a quick overview on these weaver
ants, for those who may just be joining us on this intriguing weaver ant series, and
may not be aware of just how incredibly unique and special these particular ants actually
are!
Let’s do a quick weaver ant crash course!
Prepare to be mind blown!
So, we’ve had weaver ants on this channel before: a massive colony we called the Emerald
Empire.
So these ants don’t nest in the soil like other ants, but nest arboreally exclusively
within the leaves of trees and bushes.
Check them out, so busy at work!
They are called weaver ants because they execute these massive building operations where the
workers pull leaves together, and use the silk produced by their larvae to essentially
glue these pulled in leaves to form these great, big leaf nest structures.
Using live leaves as a nest building material is part of the genius biological engineering
of these weaver ants because within these weaver ant nests, the air is perfectly humidified
due to the tree or plant’s natural transpiration process where the plant releases water vapour,
and the plant continues to take in the carbon dioxide the ants breathe out inside the nest,
while replacing it with fresh oxygen for the ants to breathe in.
Once the leaves wilt, which leaves eventually do, the ants construct another leaf nest somewhere
else on the plant.
I don’t know about you guys but I find that pretty amazing?!
And I must say, I miss keeping weaver ants on the channel.
Sadly, during the pandemic I had to release the Emerald Empire along with many other ant
colonies I was keeping, back into the wild, due to lockdown in my city making it hard
to get them feeders.
I promised myself that one day, we would have weaver ants again on the channel, and finally,
that day has come, AC Family!
The fact that we’ve made it this far is pretty spectacular!
So Chip is currently still hardening, as she’s just emerged from her pupal stage.
She’s a bit delicate, but she’s clearly ready to work.
Now some of you might be wondering why she’s brownish and not green in colour.
Great question!
So here in my country and throughout Southeast Asia where I currently live, these weaver
ants are reddish brown in colour.
The queens however come in bright green, blue green, brown, yellow, and all of these colours
in between.
However, in Australia where these weaver ants also exist, the workers are actually legit
green.
Jealous!
No, I’m kidding!
It’s cool.
Red and green reminds me of Christmas!
These ants are still cool either way!
Now, the Jade Empress here, along with all of us, have been waiting patiently for the
arrival of the first generation of workers, the nanitics, because they would now go on
to help the queen with colony duties, eventually completely taking over all responsibilities
so that the queen can just focus on laying eggs for the rest of her life.
But right now, it seems the queen is still handling most of the work.
Here you can see the Jade Empress being the caring mother that she’s always been picking
up a pupa to set it closer to the pile.
The Jade Empress carefully cleans each egg, larva, and pupa licking it with her antiseptic
saliva to ensure they don’t get attacked by mold or disease.
I also managed to catch her feeding a larva as seen her, some of her self-made nutritious
soup made from regurgitated liquified muscle tissues in her back, which so far has been
sustaining her and all these babies.
I also noticed a black spot in Chip’s gaster which means the Jade Empress has been feeding
her some of this self-made soup, as well.
Now, this self-made soup isn’t infinite in supply.
Now that the workers are arriving, the workers can now be the ones to search for food to
feed the queen and the rest of the babies.
And so AC Family that brings us now to this titanic moment!
Let’s feed this colony their very first legit meal, shall we?
Now we gotta do this carefully as I don’t want to incite any panic!
I carefully unscrewed the bottle cap and went in with a wood stirrer dipped in a sugar water
mixture.
Sorry beloved Jade Empress and Chip.
I come in peace with a gift offering of goods!
Both Chip and the Jade Empress seemed intrigued by our stick and thankfully not too scared.
They smelled it waving their antennae in the air.
Administering the drop and screwing the bottle cap back on.
I watched to see what would happen.
For the first little while I noticed that neither Chip nor the queen seemed interested
in the sweet drop of sugar water.
Surely they could smell it.
Eventually, I decided that they weren’t interested in it.
It was too early, I think.
I usually wait about 5-10 days after the first worker ecloses before offering food.
I think the Jade Empress still has a good supply of self-made soup inside her and the
worker is probably still hardening and isn’t ready to eat yet.
I think I’ll just try again in a few days, but meanwhile let’s wipe up the drop just
so we don’t get mold or babies don’t end up getting stuck in it.
Now AC Family, I’ve been thinking long and hard about what the plan should be starting
now.
Let me know what you guys think of this plan!
So I think we should just continue raising the queen, all her brood, and the nanitics
in this bottle for now.
It does seem the colony is comfortable here and the bottle is offering the colony the
perfect amount of humidity and air stillness that founding ant colonies need to succeed.
I’m afraid if we try moving the colony into a plant too early, they would surely die out
from the shock in environment.
I mentioned in a previous video that I do plan on replacing this bottle cap with a bottle
cap with a hole so the workers can exit the bottle, and I can place the bottle into a
terrarium where I can place their food.
I remember how much our Emerald Empire loved the sweet jelly cups so I intend on offering
that first.
I don’t intend on doing all of this however until the ants start showing signs of web-spinning
though, because once the weaver ants start spinning webs with the larvae’s silk, then
they can block off the hole in the bottle cap to a size that best suits them using the
silk.
That way they can decide to make the bottle cap hole small enough for the workers while
keeping the internal environment of the bottle consistent, and then when the ants would be
ready they could widen the hole for moving the queen out into a plant or tree that I
can just plant into their terrarium.
Housing them in a bottle will also allow us to film and monitor their progress so we can
see if their numbers are increasing or decreasing.
What do you guys think of this idea?
As always on this channel, your input is super valuable, and you guys have cooperatively
helped me raise and care for some of the most iconic ant colonies on youtube!
I have faith that with all of your help we can one day see this ant colony through to
become one of the greats on this channel.
Now one thing I wanted to mention for all of you who’ve been wanting to get into ant
keeping with me, is that you’re actually in luck!
Did you know it’s anting season in the Northern Hemisphere, and you don’t even need to leave
your home to start an ant colony?!
You can catch pregnant queen ants from the safety of your own backyard, balcony, or open
window starting this month!
Be sure to visit AntsCanada.com for all your ant keeping and collecting gear shipped to
you in a special package from our ant-loving facility in the USA, so you can get the most
out of your ant keeping experience.
We ship worldwide and also offer full email support if you need our help!
We also have a helpful forum and ant colony trading marketplace on the site.
Visit AntsCanada.com today.
The day after filming this episode, the second nanitic actually eclosed.
Care to give her a name, guys?
She’s so cute!
And it looks like a third is well on the way.
By next week, for sure we’ll have a nice, little army of nanitics all eager to work,
and hungry, so we can attempt to feed them their first meal of sugar-water then.
Before I forget, AC Family, I have left a hidden cookie for you here, if you would just
like to watch some extended play footage of our new weaver ant colony to the sounds of
some relaxing music.
Go check it out!
Overall, I can’t wait to learn more along with you guys, about how these incredible
weaver ants grow into the mature colonies we all know and love in the trees.
They are truly a dream species and a true gift to be able to follow week after week
like this.
I do know that what we are all doing and documenting here, is truly valuable to science because
a lot isn’t known about how weaver ant colonies start, and so this, AC Family, is an important
journey that I am super grateful to be on with all of you.
My heart is so full seeing all of your comments in these ant videos!
So if you haven’t yet, please remember to LIKE the video if you enjoyed it, as that
would truly help a lot, and hit that SUBSCRIBE button to join our ever growing AC Family,
and be part of this historical and magical weaver ant journey.
Until next week, when we return to the great Antop…
I mean, uh, the Ant Room and this burgeoning weaver ant colony, thank you all for watching
and supporting the ants.
It’s ant love forever!