In nature, all queen ants are involved in an epic race of sorts, to become the queen
mothers of their own mighty ant colonies, with up to millions and millions of workers.
It’s the only way to succeed in the ant world.
If you could establish your ant colony as fast as possible, and grow it as big as possible,
the better chances you have of survival in the wilderness.
Here I have 14 queen ants in test tubes, all caught 2 weeks ago during their annual mating
nuptial flight.
Now if all these hopeful queen ants could go on to found their own mighty ant colonies,
it would make a perfect happy ending story, wouldn’t it?
However the reality is, in nature not all queen ants make it to founding successful
ant colonies.
Some fail to find males to mate with, thus missing out on their one chance to be queens
of their own flourishing ant colonies, some fall victim to lethal molds that consume them
slowly from the inside out, and some, as you’ll see in a bit, just have the absolute worst
luck of the bunch with a terrifying fate no queen ant would wish for.
But, if you were a queen ant, perhaps you might be one of the lucky ones, who at least
make it to the first stage.
That is, laying eggs and establishing your first batch of larvae.
Getting to this stage is the first challenge not all queen ants manage to achieve.
Ladies and gentlemen, today we count how many of our 14 queen ants successfully passed their
first challenge in Mother Nature’s amazing race of life, making it to the brood stage,
as we also mourn those queens who failed to pass the challenge, and those who sadly ended
up with the worst case scenario of all!
Welcome to Mother Nature’s Amazing Race of the Queen Ants, here on the AntsCanada
Ant Channel.
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Welcome to the AC Family!
Enjoy!
AC Family, all our queen ants have been in the dark and undisturbed for 2 weeks, and
I think you will truly be shocked at what I saw when laying them all out in the light,
most especially what I’m going to show you at the end!
But before we get to that, if you’re new to ants, these queens were captured during
what’s called a nuptial flight, the one event and chance every queen ant has in her
entire life to mate.
Yes, queens are born with wings, but they shed them after mating, in most cases anyway.
I always wondered how many queens, among the millions that fly during a nuptial flight
in the wild, actually go on to successfully found a colony so I felt this mass capturing
of 14 queen ants of ours, was the perfect opportunity to get a general feel for the
queen ant success rate, in this species, anyway.
These by the way, are a large species of carpenter ants, a genus and type of ant I’m sure many
of you may be familiar with, as they’re a pretty widespread genus found throughout
the entire world.
So after capturing the queen ants during their nuptial flight, we ant keepers place them
in test tube setups like these which help simulate the claustral chamber the queens
would have made in the wild, which fingers crossed would become the birth home of their
first generation of worker ants.
Now I say finger crossed, because as mentioned, not all the queens manage to mate successfully
with males, who by the way all die the following morning after mating, and some queens also
die for various reasons which you will see in a bit.
But AC Family, let’s have a look at all 14 of our queen ants, two weeks after capture,
and find out how many queens have successfully given birth to young, shall we?
I think you guys will find the results rather interesting!
Here I’ve laid out our 14 queen ants into two groups.
Those that retained their wings on the left and those that shed their wings on the right.
Now, we ant keepers know that keeping wings on doesn’t necessarily mean the queens didn’t
mate during their nuptial flight, because some queens actually may decide to keep their
wings on for some reason, but the first thing that surprised me was that among all the winged
queens, none of them actually went on to lay eggs, and check this out.
We’ve lost a couple of them to some pretty terrifying fates.
This queen fell victim to mold.
Ugh..
This sight gives me absolute shivers.
Poor queen!
And the other deceased queen, looks like she may have fallen victim to mites!
Remember these test tubes are sterile when the queens are placed inside so these little
parasitic mites had to have come hitching a ride on her body at capture.
RIP Queens.
So 2 of the 14, dead within two weeks, and four winged queens, still egg-less.
My guess is they hadn’t mated or perhaps they’re late bloomers.
Let’s move on now to the 8 remaining wingless queen ants.
Now this is where the stats get interesting!
The first queen stands protectively over a little pile of brood.
Just beautiful!
Based on the yellowish colour of some of them, I assume some of the brood are larvae.
The yellow stuff seen in the larvae’s bodies is the nutritious soup the queen ant manufactures
from her own body tissues, which she regurgitates like a sort of ant milk to nourish the young.
The queen will continue to feed this nutritious self-made soup to the young, as well as subsist
off it until the first set of workers arrive to go look for a proper meal outside the claustral
chamber.
Amazing to think that the queen is a food-making factory for this first stage of colony founding,
but it doesn’t last forever, which is why she’s really banking on this first generation
to make it to adulthood.
Her life, as well as that of the future colony depend on it!
OK let’s move on to the next queen.
Queen #2 is also looking quite regal and proud standing protectively over her promising batch
of larvae.
Good job, Queen #2.
Let’s see Queen #3 now.
She, too, caring for a promising batch of larvae.
Moving on to Queen #4, and she too is at the same stage.
Now, AC Family, have a look at this.
Here you can see which of the brood are still eggs, as they’re more of a cloudy white
colour, and which have hatched into larvae and have been fed their first meal of queen
ant soup.
Halfway done these queens.
Let’s move on now to Queen #5.
Here you will see the queen tenderly checking and feeling her brood using her mouthparts.
Aside from feeding duties, once the eggs hatch, it’s important that these queen ants keep
their brood together as much as possible and continually clean them and the entire area,
using their saliva which has antibiotic properties, to ensure the brood doesn’t fall victim
to mold.
The queens must keep on top of staying clean for her and her young’s survival!
Now check out Queen #6, guys!
Now this is an impressive brood batch!
It seems this queen is ahead of the bunch in terms of brood volume.
She’s got a lot, and a lot of them are larvae.
I count 20 brood pieces there!
Here you can really see the queen ant soup through their bodies.
Let’s move on to Queen #7.
This queen also has an impressive brood pile going, and based on her fat and extended gaster,
it looks like she’s got more eggs on the way.
Aww have a look at her picking up the brood piles to organize them better.
What a good mom.
And now on to Queen #8.
She too has brood.
She starts cleaning herself, something she needs to do, again, in order to keep mold
at bay.
I assume any mold spores, combed off her body, either get eaten or get covered in the queen’s
antibiotic saliva rendering them unable to bloom into full out mold outbreaks.
And that, AC Family, is the success rate.
It seems based on our sample of 14 queen ants, all six of our winged queens failed to lay
eggs and found brood, two of which died from outside causes, and all eight of our wingless
queen ants successfully proceeded to the next stage of colony founding: laying eggs and
nursing the newly hatched larvae.
Now, this seems like a pretty good success rate, right?
But hold on: not so fast!
AC Family, ready for the confusing part: There is still a possibility that in fact, none
of these queens successfully mated, even if the eight queens on the right have already
begun egg-laying and raising larvae.
Let me explain.
You see, if you’re new to ants, queen ants can still lay eggs even if they hadn’t mated.
Yes, that’s right, and these eggs from unmated queens, can actually go on to hatch into male
ants.
Due to the nature of ant genetics, queen ants need a male ant’s sperm to create female
ants, i.e. worker ants and queens.
But without a male’s sperm, queen ants can still actually lay eggs, but all these unfertilized
eggs hatch into larvae then pupate into male ants, which is useless and means doom for
such queen ants because in the ant world male ants don’t do work, they don’t go off
to find food, they don’t help with cleaning duties, they don’t build tunnels, they don’t
care for the queen, nor protect the colony, nor do they care for the young and help raise
them.
Male ants actually don’t do anything in the ant world but mate come nuptial flight,
then die.
So, it’s quite possible these queen ants may be unmated still and are all just raising
male ants, which would suck because then we can’t possibly have a colony from them.
But AC Family, let’s see.
Based on my experience, some of the queens actually look quite promising, like the brood
of Queen #6, and the fattened gaster of Queen #7.
I’ll be sure to continue following the progress of these queen ants over time, and keep you
all updated.
Fingers crossed, at least one of these queens will be fertilized and go on to found their
flourishing ant colonies.
It truly means a lot to me that you guys out there are watching and supporting the ants
on their journey.
It’s a hard life being an ant, and you all taking the time to follow these true ant stories
and subscribe to the channel, joining our ever growing AC Family, is testament to me
that ant love truly abounds, despite most of the world seeing these creatures as pests
that must be sprayed or burned via magnifying glass.
If the ants on this channel could talk, I’m sure they’d all say thank you for giving
them a chance to show you what true ant life is all about.
Let’s hope that at least one of these queens is mated and goes on to produce worker ants,
so we can truly have fun with giving them a proper ant farm, and witness together the
miraculous process, fashioned by Mother Nature, of how an ant colony comes to be.
Always remember: It’s ant love forever.
Oh yeah, but AC Family, there was one thing I forgot to show you that I found a bit odd.
Looking through the winged queens, one of them stood out to me as rather peculiar.
Have a look at this queen ant.
Do you see something odd, other than her broken wing?
Look at her gaster.
That stripe is a stretched membrane, an extended gaster.
Even more odd is that I only see it on one side, and not the other.
Usually queen ants display extended gasters from physogastry, meaning being so full of
eggs they balloon up, but this seems different.
It seems something inside this queen is causing her gaster to balloon up on one side.
Weird, but if she was holding eggs in there, I imagine she would have laid by now, and
the stripe would typically be seen on both sides of her gaster.
And AC Family, that’s when it occurred to me.
One of the most terrifying fates I’ve ever witnessed in a queen ant was in a carpenter
ant like her, and involves one of the most gruesome and disgusting creatures in the animal
kingdom, in my opinion.
As I looked at that peculiar stripe, it suddenly dawned on me, what it could be and I began
to instantly throw up in my mouth.
She was incubating something, and clue: It wasn’t ant eggs.
AC Family, I sure hope this queen isn’t incubating what I think she’s incubating.
Ughhh...
Follow this continuing, real life ant story and find out what it is this queen is hosting
inside her, as well as the progress of our other queen ants with 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 all the queen ants with brood.
Go check them out!
And guys, did you know that 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.
And now it’s time for the AC Question of the Week.
Last week, we asked:
How many species of huntsman spiders are there in the world?
Congratulations to Zala Unger who answered:
Over a thousand.
Congratulations Zala, 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 a queen ant feed her first set of 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!