Oh man!
I captured the most incredible footage ever!
Behold the eight queen ants we’ve been following for over a month, since we first caught them
fresh from their mating nuptial flight.
In the first week, we watched as some queens died by fungus, others from mites, and others
an explosion of gruesome parasitic maggots, but these eight were the triumphant survivors
who made it!
We watched these glorious queens lay eggs in their simulated claustral chambers, and
from them hatch their very first little tiny larvae.
It’s now Day 32, and I have a pretty awesome update for you guys, and one sight in particular
that I managed to capture on film was hands down, one of the most mind blowing and beautiful
things I’ve ever witnessed in all my years of ant keeping!
I can’t wait for you all to be the first in the world to watch it, too.
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Now in all my years of ant keeping this founding stage, i.e. the stage at which a queen ant
raises her first set of worker ants, known as nanitics, is probably one of the most exciting
and thrilling times as an ant keeper, because we get to see the genesis or start up period
of an ant colony, the very challenging and critical time for a queen ant and her future
colony, as well as, some of the most beautiful and moving scenes ever.
What I’m about to show you guys today is something that we ant keepers know happens
in the wild, but to the best of my knowledge, has not yet been filmed.
At least, I’ve never seen it before.
What is this rare footage, you ask?
Well, stay tuned as it’s coming up!
So let’s get to it.
If you’re just joining us or haven’t been caught up on recent episodes, these eight
queen ants are carpenter ants, literally huge queens, housed in test tube set ups simulating
their claustral chambers where they’ve been busy raising their future ant kingdoms!
I’ve kept them undisturbed in the dark in this drawer for 32 days.
So let’s take a look at the progress of our eight queens at day 32!
This is what Queen #1 looked like the last time we saw her two weeks ago.
She had a small clutch of brood, mostly eggs and young larvae.
But AC Family, you guys will love what her brood pile looks like now!
Woah!
Check out that awesome brood pile!
This shocked me the most!
You could see mature larvae all around, but even more exciting is that there are now three
cocoons!
I was elated to discover this!
They all grow up so fast, don’t they?
So in those three cocoons are ant pupae developing into adult ants, and from them any day now
will emerge the queen’s very first worker ants, the nanitics.
Queen #1 is so close to realizing the Big Queen Ant Dream of successfully founding an
ant colony.
I imagine this queen ant is pretty hungry at this point, as she hasn’t had a proper
meal since she left her birth colony 32 days ago at nuptial flight, but I’m sure she’s
hopeful to see her young nearing adulthood now.
Some ant keepers choose to give their queens a bit of food at this founding stage, but
I don’t, because nature has given her all that she needs to survive, and she’s also
acquiring sustenance from her broken down back muscle tissue that powered her wings
at nuptial flight.
It’s this same broken down muscle tissue that makes up the self-made ant soup or what
I like to call ant milk that she’s been feeding her young this whole time.
More about that later!
She makes sure to diligently clean the area around her young to ensure no fungal or bacterial
growth occurs that can endanger them.
And she makes sure to periodically clean herself, as well.
Amazing to note that ants clean themselves in the same way that cats do, running their
arms over their head and body parts then through their mouthparts.
Her saliva actually has some incredible antimicrobial and antifungal properties.
Her attention to cleanliness is also quite evident in the water portion of her test tube,
which still looks clear and clean.
From the looks of things, it does seem like Queen #1 has stopped laying eggs for now,
and is conserving her remaining resources and efforts, to raise this batch of nanitics.
Congrats Queen #1!
I’m so proud of your progress!
You’re almost there!
Alright, let’s bang through the rest of these queens so I can finally show you the
ultra rare footage I’ve been talking about.
Moving on, this is what Queen #2’s brood looked like two weeks ago.
Also a few eggs and newborn larvae, and AC Family, this is what she looks like today:
Just beautiful!
She also has a couple of cocoons there.
I see ant eggs, some larvae at different stages, and even mature larvae that are just about
ready to spin cocoons.
She’s also been such a good mom.
Congrats, Queen #2.
The brood pile of Queen #3 two weeks ago looked like this, again young larvae and eggs.
And today, ah so satisfying!
Cocoons, and a few mature larvae also nearing the cocoon stage.
Great job, Queen #3.
Now AC Family, what I saw in the test tube of Queen #4 was not as optimistic, but rather
a bit concerning.
This was her two weeks ago.
She had eggs and lots of young larvae.
But peeking into her test tube this week, I was surprised that she was a bit behind
on the brood development.
I saw a bunch of young larvae, intermediate larvae, and one mature larva that was about
ready to pupate.
My guess was she probably wasn’t able to produce as much ant milk for the young as
the last three queens, or perhaps she laid more eggs than the last three queens and therefore
had more mouths to feed, giving less food per larva, or perhaps the young were just
maturing slower for some reason, but what I spotted next scared me!
A mite!
Oh no!
Now, I should note that this could be a friendly mite that eats garbage and waste, and not
a dangerous parasitic mite, but I do know it definitely had to have come hitching a
ride on the queen’s body because these test tubes are sterile when I place the queens
inside and sealed tightly with a cotton swab.
Let’s hope this mite isn’t a dangerous one and even the reason for the tardy larval
development.
Crossing our fingers, AC Family, and hoping this queen and her brood make it.
Now Queen #5 was just as perplexing.
Check her out!
Two weeks ago, she was also caring for her little pile of larvae and eggs, and today,
hmmm… not much change.
I see eggs and small larvae.
Uh oh!
This was not a promising sight either.
Although slow developing brood could just mean that she simply has slow growing babies,
it also could mean that this queen ant wasn’t fertilized having failed to mate with males
on her nuptial flight night.
If you’re confused by the fact that there are babies despite her not having mated, I’ve
mentioned in past videos that unfertilized queen ants can still actually give birth to
young, but these young grow up to become male ants.
I know, it’s weird, In the ant world, due to ant genetics, eggs that aren’t fertilized
grow up to become male ants, and if that’s the case for Queen #5, sadly it means she
will not be able to fulfill the Great Queen Ant Dream of founding a colony.
And no, she can’t mate with her own son to have babies, as her one shot was at nuptial
flight night 32 nights ago.
Let’s hope that’s not the case and Queen #5 pulls through.
Ok, so I’m going to skip Queen #6 and leave her to the last, because it was in her claustral
chamber that I filmed the ultra rare and awesome footage, so we’ll get back to her in a sec.
Queen #7 two weeks ago had such an impressive brood pile, and now she cares for lots of
giant larvae all ready to spin their cocoons, as well as various other larvae at different
stages.
Oh, look at her picking up that larva and placing it carefully tighter into the pile.
Queen #7, we wish you all the luck in the world!
And finally, Queen #8, also had a brood pile of larvae and eggs two weeks ago, and today
lots of mature larvae ready to pupate and larvae at various stages.
Keep up the great work Queen #8.
Alright, AC Family, and now the moment we’ve all been waiting for, or at least I’ve been
waiting to show you.
The rare sight I caught on camera!
Queen #6 two weeks ago had lots of newborn larvae and eggs, and this week I don’t think
I was prepared to actually see what I witnessed within her test tube!
Behold Queen #6.
Her brood pile was now comprised of a cocoon, I see there, and lots of mature larvae, but
AC Family, check out what happened the moment I started recording Queen #6 and her brood.
It just so happened that we peeked on them at just the right time!
One of the larvae seemed to be moving and stretching, as if it was yearning for something.
See that?
And then, the queen noticed and moved closer to the larva, and AC Family, that’s when
I saw it!
The larva reached out for its mom and the queen extended a tube-like organ from her
mouthparts to begin feeding the larva her self-made nutritious soup of ant milk, made
from her liquified back muscle tissues.
Isn’t that crazy, guys!
You can actually see the queen’s mouth part, like the nipple of a baby bottle extending
out to feed the suckling larva.
This was the very first time I had ever witnessed this in my entire life!
I couldn’t believe it!
It lasted only a few seconds but I was left in awe at how beautiful the moment was.
The larva even continued to sort of lick and swallow the remaining bits of ant milk after
the queen pulled away.
How cute!
And just when I thought it was over, the queen came back and continued to give the larva
a second dose of ant milk!
Wow!
It’s like the queen decided to give it time to swallow before proceeding.
AC Family, what we’re witnessing here is extremely rare footage of the queen’s feeding
process.
I’ve always read about it, and we ant keepers know it happens at this stage, but actually
seeing it with my own eyes was truly a gift, and not something we ant keepers get to see
every day, certainly not up close and in 4K UHD like this!
This feeding process is the ant equivalent of a human mother breastfeeding her baby.
It’s extra special because this is the only time of an entire queen ant’s life that
she feeds her larvae like this, because once these larvae mature into adult workers ants,
it’s the worker ants that will be the ones to, from then on,take over, care for and feed
the young from collected food from the outside world, and the queen would then do nothing
else but focus on her job as egg layer of the colony.
It’s why I knew that seeing this was truly awesome!
And just when I thought the feeding session was over, she moved on to a nearby larva,
coddled it with her antennae, located it’s mouth and proceeded to also feed it some of
her ant milk.
It was at this moment that I realized just how beautiful the process of motherhood is.
I mean, consider this.
Ants and humans couldn’t be any more different biologically speaking, right?
Yet queen ants, at least for this period of their lives, are capable of producing actual
food for their babies, just like human mothers can.
Of course, the mechanics may be different, as human mothers produce breast milk from
mammary glands, and ant mothers produce ‘ant milk’ from broken down muscle tissue, but
the concept is still the same.
Mothers bearing children, and then feeding them food produced by their own bodies!
Maybe because I’m a guy, this is only blowing my mind now, but I realized in this awesome
moment, just how miraculous and beautiful motherhood really was.
I also couldn’t help but wonder if this was what ‘ant love’ looked like.
The way these queen mothers cared for and nursed their young so attentively, looked
very much like an expression of love to me, but in ant form.
What do you guys think?
Do you guys think ants feel love for their babies?
If that was the case, and these ants were capable of feeling the emotion we humans know
as “love”, it was pretty mind blowing then, that despite ants and humans being so
different, our common denominator was still the same: it was love.
I was pleased with what we saw today in this humble ant claustral chamber, and my heart
was so full and inspired.
All eight of these queen ants have been lucky to make it this far on their epic journey
to realizing their Great Queen Ant Dream of being the royal mothers of their own successful
ant colonies.
I’m actually learning so much from this case study of raising multiple queens and
their future colonies like this.
Being able to witness and document the little things that happen all the time in nature,
that we humans could otherwise never witness, is truly an invaluable opportunity.
I mean, can you imagine that normally in the wild, these queens would be hidden and tucked
away in the dark, within the privacy of their claustral chambers in rotting wood cavities
or in burrows in the ground, but here we were witnessing them up close as they found their
ant kingdoms step by step?
It’s why I just love ant keeping!
If any of you guys also want to try keeping ants with me, it’s actually still anting
season in the Northern Hemisphere, and the final nuptial flights are wrapping up for
the year so go out and look for those queen ants, guys.
For those in Australia, your nuptial flights start soon!
But if you don’t manage to find any queens at all, no worries!
Just head on over to my website at Antscanada.com and click the QUEEN ANTS FOR SALE tab to find
ant sellers in your area selling queen ants with brood, like these starting colonies you
see here, or if you’re lucky, you’ll even find sellers of fully mature ant colonies
with lots of workers.
And while you’re there be sure to also pick up all your pro-ant keeping gear, ant farms,
and literature at our shop.
I’d love for you guys to keep ants with me and witness for yourself all the amazing
things we see on this channel in real life within the comfort of your own home.
By the way, we ship out of the US.
I also wanted to take the opportunity to thank you guys for following the journey of these
beloved queen ants of ours, and cheering them on silently from wherever in the world you
may be watching.
AC Family, I take none of you for granted.
It just really means a lot to me that you guys have given ants a chance, subscribed
to the channel to join our ever growing AC Family, and just allowed these little miracles
of life we call ants into your hearts.
It’s pretty cool to see so many people looking at ants from a different lens, both literally
and figuratively.
They’re more than just the pests most people see them as.
They’re actually very much like little versions of us.
As for me, I’m super excited for these queens to finally have their very first workers which
for many of them should be any day now, bringing them one step closer to realizing their ultimate
dream, and when they do, you can be sure I’ll be filming them to record every milestone
along the way.
I’ll keep you guys all updated on their progress.
I placed the queens back into the dark to continue doing what nature designed them to
do, in peace.
Thank you all for watching and supporting the ants.
It’s ant love forever!
AC Family, did you enjoy today’s episode?
Follow these continuing, real life ant stories 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 queen ants in their claustral chambers with their new brood.
Go check them out!
And now it’s time for the AC Question of the Week.
Last week, we asked:
What type of flies belong to the genus Apocephalus?
Congratulations to Xoxoxo Xoxoxo who answered:
Ant decapitating flies
Congratulations Xo, you just won a free Ultimate Ant Keeping Handbook from our shop!
In this week’s AC Question of the Week we ask:
What is ant milk made of?
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!