Guys, check this out! Look at them! They might not seem like much, but these are the humble
beginnings of some of the most ecologically destructive, physically dangerous, and fearsome
ants on the planet, with a sting that feels like fire! This is our starting colony of fire ants.
This here is Her Majesty, the queen ant, whom we on the channel have named the Crimson Queen. I
just love looking at her - the complex beauty of her compound eye, those huge menacing jaws,
and the golden bristly hairs of her face, as well as the three tiny eyes at the top of her head,
known as ocelli, that form a sort of tiara on her head. She’s such a beaut!
But other than beauty, the Crimson Queen has also been a top mother thus far,
working hard night and day to raise her first generation of fire ant workers,
known scientifically as the nanitics, to maturity. These nanitics are packed with energy and vigor,
as they vow to help the queen pioneer their growing ant army.
For instance, look! They’ve already been diligent at establishing a colony garbage
site and bathroom area at the opposite end of their test tube. Got to be super clean,
as mold outbreaks can totally wipe them out! The nanitics have also helped the Crimson Queen care
for all the brood! I see all the life stages in this healthy brood pile: eggs, larvae, and pupae.
Check out this pupa that, based on its darkened colour, is just a few hours away from becoming a
fully formed adult ant, a process called eclosing. Once fully eclosed, it will be moving around like
the rest of the worker ants joining the ranks, and hey, look! That ant being carried there is
actually eclosing right now, as her fellow sisters help further unfurl her legs, by gently massaging
her to get that ant blood flowing, through those never-before-used limbs, which appears to have an
egg entangled in them. Guess the nanitics are still noobs at sorting all the babies
according to age, to avoid mishaps like this. But guys, the single most important task the
nanitics must complete, if this colony is to succeed, is to find the colony’s first
real meal! And it just so happens, today we’re going to give them exactly that! You guys will
be mind blown, as we feed this starting fire ant colony their first real meal.
This episode is insane! Pop the champagne! We’ve got fire ants again,
here on the AntsCanada Ant Channel!
Please SUBSCRIBE to the channel and hit the BELL ICON!
Welcome to the AC Family! Enjoy!
AC Family, it blows my mind that our beloved Crimson Queen, whom we caught 26 days ago from
a nuptial flight in my yard, laid eggs in her test tube setup 10 days later,
which hatched into larvae a week later, then pupae, and finally this week,
welcomed her nanitics into the picture. It’s all happening too fast, guys! But as mentioned,
today these ants are going to enjoy their very first real meal ever, and I’ll tell you now,
I loved, laughed, and even cried witnessing how the ants reacted to their first meal ever. Also,
do keep on watching until the end, as I have a very important question to ask you,
and will be needing you help regarding this new fire ant colony of ours!
Alright, so we’re going to feed this colony now but, if you’re new to ants,
you may have been wondering what all these ants have been eating thus far, if they’ve never had
a legit meal yet. Well to put it simply for the newcomers, the Crimson Queen here has been fasting
this whole time during this colony founding stage. I haven’t been feeding her, because she
has all she needs to nourish both herself and her first generation of workers, her nanitics.
When we caught her during her mating flight, she was placed into this test tube setup to simulate
what is called a ‘claustral cell’, a.k.a. the underground chamber she would have built for
herself somewhere in my yard had we not caught her, and once settled inside, she went on to
do what she normally would have done, which is lay eggs. Now this is where a miraculous process
happens within her body, where her body begins to break down the wing muscle tissue, which formally
was used to power her wings during her nuptial flight, and turns it into a nutritious soup,
which she regurgitates up, to feed to the larvae, like a sort of ant milk, until the larvae evolve
into her first worker ants. The thing is, this nutritious soup is not of an unlimited supply, and
is only enough to raise her nanitics to maturity. She’s done that now, and as you can see here she’s
still feeding her larvae, what remains of her ant milk soup. But now that the Crimson Queen’s job in
this founding process has come to completion, the big responsibility is now upon these hyper-active
nanitics, who must venture out into the world and find their very first real meal, to bring back to
the queen and feed the entire colony. The survival of the future fire ant army depends on it.
And so AC Family, we’re totally going to make their day now, and offer them exactly what
they’ve been waiting and searching for. Let’s feed them! I opened their test tube, and administered
with a toothpick a tiny drop of Canadian honey, and guys this is where the fun begins.
Almost immediately, a curious ant comes to inspect the strange large
drop. It smells it with its antennae, then moves in for a taste. “Mmm!
Delicious,” the ant thought tasting the surface of the giant honey drop. Now take note,
guys of the ant’s tiny abdomen as it is now, before it gorges itself with the honey.
Along comes a second ant, as the first ant pulls away to head back to the colony to
call for some backup! Soon another ant shows up, to begin drinking,
and a third. This process of the ants back home hearing about news of the tasty drop,
causing curious ants to wander out to taste it for themselves continues.
I just loved watching the ants drinking! You can actually see the mouthparts breaking through the
surface of the honey drop and sucking up the sweet goods! Have a look. It’s so satisfying to watch!
This is what the ants look like from above. Their vibrating antennae look
so funny and cute! Interesting to think that these ants have only known the
taste of their queen’s regurgitated self-made soup, which must taste ok,
but I’m certain these ants are mind blown right now by the taste of this delectable honey!
Check out this shot of the ant drinking and filling up its crop. So ants have two stomachs,
a social stomach which the ants are filling up with honey now, and their personal stomach. The
social stomach is like their internal lunch box which they fill up and regurgitate later to feed
the rest of the colony, through a process called trophallaxis which you will see happen shortly.
And guys look at how amazing this is! You can actually see the honey pass through the ants’
waist segment, known as the petiole. It looks like muscles pump the honey through
there before entering the ants’ social stomach. Crazy, in all my years of ant
keeping I have never been able to see or film this before! What a beautiful sight!
Another worker heads back to the colony, and guys watch this! A hungry ant comes to inspect the
ant that came back with a full crop. It rubs the chin of the full ant with its antennae,
which stimulates what I call the kiss of life. This is trophallaxis, when an ant
transfers food from its crop to another ant or ants through mouth to mouth regurgitation.
Trophallaxis is an awesome way eusocial insects like bees, wasps,
and ants distribute food. It means not everyone needs to go out into the dangerous world to feed.
It just takes a few ants to bring home the collected goods within their social stomachs,
and it also helps that the food is kept sterile internally within
their bodies. Check out this three way trophallaxis happening here!
And guys check this out! You can actually see the honey being reverse pumped in the
opposite direction this time through the petiole, as it’s being fed to the
recipient ant. Isn’t that crazy? So cool to see the physical mechanism at work!
Eventually, trophallaxis can be seen happening with all the nanitics. It seems this colony has
chosen to feed all the nanitics first, before the young and the queen. I was
most concerned about our Crimson Queen. I really wanted the workers to feed her,
as she was surely starving and weakened at this point! She had worked so hard and given up so
much of herself, quite literally giving up her own body tissues to feed her starting family.
Suddenly, it was as if she finally got a whiff of the feeding pheromones her workers were
wafting around because she totally woke up and started to move downwards. With her antennae,
she could definitely smell what was going on, but I was moved to see her wait patiently for one of
her daughters to bring her her first real meal in weeks. She knew that her nanitics needed to
be fed first, because without them in top health, there would be no future colony. The young can
always wait, and she herself had just enough nourishment reserves left to get her through a
little bit more. But she knew that the moment she had a taste of the colony’s first meal, it would
signify the end of her hardest task of raising her nanitics to become a self-sufficient army.
Here comes a worker! Will this ant be the one to finally feed the queen?
No. The larvae are the next priority. I watched as the nanitics continued to
feed each other and the larvae. The Crimson Queen exercised restraint,
waiting patiently for her turn to feed, as all her kids filled up on the treasured honey.
It actually made me love our Crimson Queen so much more! She could have
easily raged in between nanitics feeding each other and stolen a gulp,
but no. She had decided to wait her turn and trust in the judgement of her nanitics.
And then out of nowhere, one of the nanitics full of honey tapped the
Crimson Queen gently to finally give her the long awaited kiss of life.
Like an ancient ritual passed on through millions of years, our beloved Crimson Queen
had her first taste of food collected by her nanitics. In a neat spiderman kiss position,
the Crimson Queen fed and fed and fed. AC Family, this is truly one of my
favourite moments in the ant keeping hobby. Watching an ant colony for the first time,
being an ant colony and sharing their first meal together. From this moment on,
the queen no longer will need to be in charge of feeding everyone. That responsibility was now
passed on to the workers. She only would need to worry about laying eggs for the rest of her life.
And just when I thought our Crimson Queen was done, nope! She went in for more! And guys
that was it. For the next few hours I watched as several more ants continued to feed the queen,
as well as the young, and have a look at this hilarious larva, begging to be fed
as it stretched out for nanitics, but with an egg stuck to its head. The poor baby! I think with an
egg stuck to its head the workers had trouble feeding it, but it eventually it did get fed!
The next day, I looked into the test tube and was surprised at what I saw.
The colony was so hyper and so energized now, looking completely full! Have a look
at the gaster of the queen! She’s stuffed! All the honey was now gone,
and the ants had placed cotton fibres in the sticky areas for safety. So amazing to see the
colony so healthy and well nourished. I also noticed that the workers finally mastered the
art of organizing the brood by age now. That’s awesome. No more eggs sticking to other babies!
In a few days, I will try to feed some protein to these ants, perhaps a mealworm or something,
but for now, I would let these ants simply work on strengthening their numbers and relax with
their full bellies! What do you suggest we feed them next? Pretty soon this colony will outgrow
this test tube, and I’ll be needing your help for ideas on what their next setup should be.
So let’s start brainstorming, AC Family, so we can give these ants an epic home once they’re ready.
I must say, it really means a lot to me that you all are joining me in caring for these ants and
those of this channel. I really do feel like we are keeping these ants together, don’t you?
Thank you for always participating in the votes, giving your suggestions, and sharing your ideas.
It means a lot to me, and together, I know in my heart that we will help these ants live out their
best lives under our care, and soon take their throne as the new reigning colony of the channel.
But guys at the start of the video, I mentioned that I would be needing your help with something
important and it’s this! Time to VOTE for a name for this new fire ant colony of ours! I’ve chosen
my top 5 name suggestions given by you, the AC Family, in our last video on these ants, and
placed them as replies under the pinned comment of this video. To cast your vote, simply hit the
THUMBS UP on the name suggestion you vote for, and the name suggestion with the most number of LIKES
will be our new fire ant colony’s official name! Thank you AC Council, for your input!
Also, if you enjoyed this video please do remember to hit the LIKE button as it really helps a lot,
to let youtube know you enjoy these ant videos and that they’re worth sharing to new audiences,
and hit that SUBSCRIBE button to be part of this new and exciting journey,
as we raise this mighty fire ant kingdom into the millions! I will continue to keep
you all updated on the progress of our fire ants, so until we revisit our beloved s fire
ant colony thank you all for watching, and supporting the ants. It’s ant love forever!
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