I can’t believe I’m doing this.
This is truly the saddest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life.
The time has come to bring death to an entire colony of fire ants by boiling water.
I watched the fire ants emerging from their nest holes and gathering around the chicken
bones I lay to lure them out, but I knew this boiling water would seep deep into their extensive
little holes and tunnels and hopefully burn the colony’s queen alive.
She was the one that needed to die for all of this to work.
So, here goes nothing.
1… 2… 3…
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After last week’s episode aired, the amount of comments I got urging me to kill the invasive
fire ants in my yard was just staggering.
Just to make sure I was reading correctly, I ran a poll on my community tab, and you
the AC Family, all of you subscribers and avid supporters of the channel voted and the
results were undeniable: over 70% of you voted for the fire ants to be killed by boiling
water, in order to save all the native ants in our yard.
I’ll be showing you all the footage I took of the boiling water ant apocalypse I unleashed
in this video, but just a warning, it’s very disturbing footage and if you’re an
ant lover like me, extremely heart-wrenching.
It was a bit surprising to see the response from you guys wanting me to kill the fire
ants.
I remember thinking to myself, were these people newer AC Family?
Were they not there when we lovingly cared for our late fire ant colony, the Fire Nation?
And their predecessors, the Phoenix Empire?
Fire ants, though a very destructive force in most of the world where they have invaded,
actually make pretty good pet ants, if you can manage to deal with their searing painful
stings, keep up with their growing demands for food and space, and always keep one step
ahead of them in their constant plans to escape the setup you’ve created for them.
They’re a fast growing species, full of action, polymorphic with huge supermajors,
and actually quite fascinating ants to watch.
I love keeping fire ants as pets, which is why knowing I was now tasked to kill them
was one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do.
But it just had to be done.
You see there’s a huge ant war happening in my yard, lands of which we on the channel
call Antopia.
It’s a great Antopian war of epic proportions between two main teams of ants.
Team Native Ants, the various ant species which have lived in these lands for millions
of years, the true owners of these ancestral grounds that occupy the soils, the sticks,
and the trees.
Weaver ants, marauder ants, flower ants, slender ants, acrobat ants, polyrhachis ants, asian
bullet ants, and the list continues.
Having all these native ants around spells a healthy ecosystem, as each species of native
ant has its own ecological purpose in the yard’s circle of life.
However, within the past few decades a team of very destructive ants have encroached on
these lands in attempts to invade and conquer.
This is the ever-foreboding Team Invasive Ants, which include black crazy ants, pharaoh
ants, yellow crazy ants, and fire ants.
These invasive ant species are bad, because they displace, compete, and even kill native
ant species (which you will see shortly), as well as other native wildlife.
Check out these black crazy ants which have murdered a colony of native termites.
A survey of the yard last week revealed to me that there were now less native ants in
the yard than there were last year, and many, many more invasive ants, especially fire ants
- fire ants leading the Team Invasive Ant takeover of our yard.
And so, I asked you last week what we should do.
I had mentioned that I had heard senior myrmecologists recommend pouring boiling water repeatedly
over a fire ant nest to kill them, and this was clearly the popular vote, and so AC Family,
the majority had spoken, and your will was my command.
This was going to be crazy!
First, I located the main fire ant nest.
I wanted to make sure there were lots of ants at this location because if so, it meant this
was likely the main fire ant nest in which the queen was residing somewhere below, and
not just a satellite nest, which fire ants also establish.
I laid down some bait, their favourite: chicken bones, to lure out the fire ants from below
ground.
If there would be a lot of fire ants pouring out, it was a good sign that I was at the
right place and that the queen was likely somewhere below foot.
Instantly, the fire ants discovering the chicken got amped up and ran back into the nest to
tell the others.
Soon more and more fire ants began to pour out from underground.
A few at first, but soon a swarm.
I also noticed the bait was attracting black crazy ant scouts.
These ants would also be dying today if they stuck around for the next couple of minutes.
I did notice an ant from Team Native crawling around, also probably attracted by the smell
of the chicken.
It was a lone asian bullet ant.
The fire ants were not willing to share their find, however, so they made sure to kill it
and leave it dying from fire ant sting poison in a pile of rubble.
It was sad to see just how ruthless these fire ants were, and how easily they could
dispatch native ants, like this Asian Bullet Ant.
But today, this murdered native ant, as well as all the millions of native ants murdered
or outcompeted by the fire ants, would get their vengeance.
I added a cup of jelly and the fire ants began to swarm and feed cum gusto.
Seeing all these ants now, I was certain we were at the main nest.
It was now time to unleash the ant apocalypse on these unsuspecting fire ants.
I began to boil a large pot of water.
Returning to the nest, I took one last look at the fire ants feeding.
These innocent lives, all just doing what nature had intended for them to do, i.e. survive.
I knew it wasn’t their fault they were so destructive to my ecosystem.
It wasn’t their fault that their ancestral queens hitched rides on imported goods and
plants that we humans imported, hence introducing these fire ants to areas like my country many
yrs ago.
None of this was the fault of the innocent fire ants, but killing them today was something
I needed to do, for the sake of Team Native ants, who were in peril now.
AC Family, I can’t believe I’m doing this.
This is truly the saddest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life.
So, here goes nothing.
1… 2… 3…
I unleashed a pillar of scalding hot water onto the fire ants.
The fire ants were shocked at the vibrations approaching and panicked as a searing hot
tsunami of boiling water ravaged through their home and territories.
The boiling water easily penetrated the nest holes, surely making its lethal way deep into
the nest interior.
I poured boiling water repeatedly onto the ants until I felt it had seeped deep enough
to reach their queen’s chamber some 1 meter or so deep.
When I was done, I couldn’t believe my eyes.
The lands were littered with dead fire ant bodies.
Returning ants that had wandered back home from foraging, screamed in terror as they
scurried around the hot soils.
Their home had been destroyed and family killed.
An ant clamored desperately to help pick up the dying ant bodies, but even they were too
scalding hot to hold.
We had officially wreaked destruction on the fire ant nest, and as an ant lover, it was
the most horrifying sight I’d ever seen.
The guilt I felt in my heart was unbearable.
But I knew that doing this was an act of saving grace for the hundreds if not thousands of
native ant colonies in my area.
I realized now that this fire ant colony was killed, the queen fire ant burned alive and
unable to produce more eggs to create more fire ants, it gave all the native ants in
the area a fighting chance, to hopefully move back into the yard and reestablish its natural
order.
I also have begun to make plans to start replanting more shrubbery and trees in the area, to create
more habitat for the native ants and hopefully encourage them to move back in.
AC Family, as hard as all of this was, I knew we did the right thing.
Sometimes our choices in life are tough ones.
It helps when we have others to help us decide at such times, to weigh all options, and share
our opinions.
AC Family, thank you for always being so supportive of this channel and of the ants.
The ant love truly abounds every time I read the comments on these ant videos.
I realize this video will cause a lot of controversy, because we’ve always promoted the non-killing
of ants, and I completely understand any angry backlash that may result from a video like
this.
But I’ve had some time to think about it, and I realize that this channel is about conservation
and preservation of ant life, and in eliminating these invasive fire ants from my yard, yes
it’s sad, but we’re doing just that: conserving and preserving ant life, and all other local
life in fact.
And so, this entire situation showed me that sometimes, to find a solution to a problem,
you need to step back and see the big picture, because being too close to a problem could
blur your judgment.
What do you guys think?
Did we do the right thing?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
There are several other fire ant nests in the yard and around the area and I will simply
have to do the same thing to those nests over the next few weeks.
Boiling water is definitely a better alternative to pesticides.
But just because we’re killing fire ants, it doesn’t mean we can’t love them.
I think we’ll be keeping fire ant colonies as pets for as long as this channel exists,
which is basically as long as you guys keep watching these videos, and subscribe of course
to join our ever growing AC Family.
Thank you all so much for watching and supporting the ants.
It’s ant love forever.