They’ve got new rules, they count ‘em!
Behold the Phoenix Empire, a young fire ant colony that is growing bigger in numbers by
the day.
It’s amazing to think that just a few weeks ago, this fruitful fire ant colony started
with just one pregnant queen ant and her eggs.
Now, she’s got her own growing army of workers, masses of babies, and more on the way.
But as more fire ant members join this multiplying army, new rules and colony laws must be set
in place if they’re to succeed at becoming a mighty fire ant colony.
These new Phoenix Empire rules which all members must follow, will truly blow your mind!
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If there’s something ant keeping has taught me, it’s that ants are so much like humans,
it’s staggering.
Before us here, lies the simple setup, in which an intricate city of fire ants is slowly
taking shape.
You guys will trip out at some of the rules they’ve begun to establish, so keep on watching
until the end to find out what the Phoenix Empire’s new quote-unquote colony rules
are.
But first, here is the Phoenix Empire’s gorgeous, royal queen, whose name is now officially
the ‘Ember Empress’, thanks to you guys who voted for her official name in last week’s
video.
Now, I can’t figure out if it should be “Empress Ember” or the “Ember Empress”.
Can you guys take a quick moment to vote here to help decide on her official name?
Thank you AC Council for your input.
She’s an awesome queen, and has been quite busy.
Have a look.
This here is just one section of her impressive brood pile.
You can see eggs, larvae, and pupae.
And here is the queen’s newest clutch of eggs!
If you look carefully, you’ll notice that some of the eggs have already hatched into
tiny larvae.
Congrats, our Empress!
You’re doing great!
Now this might be random, but a lot of you have been asking about the three bumps on
Empress Ember’s head, some of you guys even fearing they were mites.
No need to worry, though!
Those are actually eyes called ocelli, useful to the queen during her past nuptial flight,
the great night our Empress here left her mother colony and mated with males from other
colonies.
Flying and seeking out potential males all while also trying not to be eaten by predators,
requires good vision so having these extra eyes on top of her head is super useful.
They’re kind of like a fire ant crown now, and those wing scars you see on her thorax,
like her royal stripes, earned the moment she broke off her wings after insemination,
marking the start of her journey as queen!
Now, with the queen constantly laying eggs, and all these new babies popping up demanding
attention and care, the workers have been extremely diligent at helping raise their
growing siblings, which brings me to the Phoenix Empire’s first set of rules.
Phoenix Empire Rule #1: Arrange the kids according to age!
Like pre-school, you may notice that the workers have started to pay closer attention to arranging
the brood according to life stage and age.
All the eggs are bunched together, and stray eggs eventually get picked up and placed in
the egg pile.
Same goes for larvae and pupae.
As the colony continues to grow and these brood piles get even larger and larger, segregating
the young according to age becomes more and more important, and here’s why.
Each life stage, requires a specific care regimen and environment.
For instance, eggs need to be bunched together so they better retain moisture collectively
plus they’re easier to transport in packages, in case of an emergency like during an ant-eater
tongue intrusion or something.
The larvae need to be constantly fed, and as they shed their skin multiple times as
they mature, the workers need to eat the larvae’s shed skin, as you can see here, in order that
it doesn’t just lay around and grow fungus.
Speaking of fungus by the way, eggs and larvae need to be constantly licked clean by the
workers, as ant saliva contains an anti-biotic and anti-fungal which keeps all brood from
harmful fungus or microbes.
Finally, pupae and pupating larvae are placed in the warmest portions of the nest in order
that they develop as quickly as possible so they can become adult worker ants faster,
and help out!
So as you can see, the Phoenix Empire here is getting really systematic with how they
do things, but fire ant youth management isn’t all.
Check out what else the Phoenix Empire had been secretly planning!
So this brood explosion has been the result of all the food I’ve been providing the
colony this week.
Peeking into their food chamber, this AC Test Tube Portal from our ant shop at AntsCanada.com
has been fully stocked with goodies.
Have a look!
Here you’ll see, a hollowed out superworm piece.
And behind it some sweet mango-flavoured jelly.
And much like we saw last week, evidence of these foods can be seen through the larvae’s
semi-transparent skin.
But with all the eating this colony has been doing as of late, it made me wonder what the
colony was doing with all their waste.
Their test tube appeared clean and sterile as ever.
What was the Phoenix Empire doing with their leftover scraps, I wondered, and where were
they going to the bathroom?
AC Family, Rule #2: All members of the Phoenix Empire are to do their business and eliminate
at the designated colony bathroom.
Behold, the Phoenix Empire’s official toilet.
Sounds weird but isn’t that awesome?
They’ve chosen a spot right behind the jelly to poo.
If you’ve never seen ant droppings before, they look like this.
Like bird poop, they have a whitish liquid part and some solid pieces.
And what’s totally amazing is they’ve strategically set up their toilet area at
a spot furthest from the colony.
It’s a smart toilet location.
The poop dries up and isn’t anywhere near the delicate young and colony’s living quarters.
It could just decompose naturally in the corner.
I’m not too sure where the queen poops though, because I couldn’t see any droppings in
the test tube and I assume it was too dangerous for the Phoenix Empire to allow Empress Ember
to wander out in to the open, so my guess is the workers simply carry her royal droppings
to dump into the toilet area.
It also would make sense that her droppings would be minimal, as I’m sure most of the
material she eats goes towards all the eggs she’s producing.
But guys, bathroom rules weren’t all that surprised me.
Looking around the test tube portal look at what else I found!
Rule #3: All colony garbage is to be dumped at this place.
Beneath the cup of jelly, I was thrilled to discover the colony’s garbage.
Little bits of uneaten superworm and mealworm leftovers, as well as the meconia or fecal
pellets of the larvae, were all stashed here.
It’s interesting that they chose to place their garbage underneath the jelly cup, because
it showed that the Phoenix Empire understood the need to bury their garbage.
In nature, burying the colony’s garbage helps break it down faster, as it becomes
more accessible to soil creatures and beneficial microbes which feast on this ant midden.
Cool right?
Now there was one last rule the Phoenix Empire was following, which I found to be the most
interesting!
I noticed the colony’s water portion in their test tube was running out, so I connected
a new fresh test tube setup to the test tube portal.
Upon discovery, the Phoenix Empire got really excited and began sending out workers to inspect
the new water source and maybe, just maybe, their future new nest location once their
current test tube dries out.
But it was at this time, that I noticed the Phoenix Empire had began to practice something
biologists already know ants commonly do.
Rule #4: Only the oldest ants are allowed to leave the nest at any time!
Notice how all the workers entering the new test tube here are dark in colour?
Only the colony elders can venture out into the world outside the nest, while all new
young workers are stay-at-home caregivers and house chore workers!
It’s a smart colony rule because this way, inexperienced or unhardened young worker ants
don’t end up getting injured and/or dying in the dangerous outside world, and those
that do risk their lives to gather resources outside the protection of the nest, are the
hardiest, strongest, and most experienced of the bunch, and if they were to die, at
least the young ones within the nest have the longest lives still to live, and can hold
up the fort until the next generation of workers arrive, and they themselves become old enough
to be foragers.
Isn’t it amazing how systematic they are now?
I think we’ll start seeing this more and more, where the bigger the colony gets, the
more organized and structured they need to be.
It makes sense.
Whether it be ants or people, it seems the more complex the society, the more complex
the rules.
It’s this organization that will ensure colony success.
Biologists aren’t sure how the ants know what rules to establish, or when, but perhaps
its a mixture of instinct and collective decisions made by members of the colony at the right
times of colony development.
In the coming days, I look forward to introducing some allies into the Phoenix Empire’s setup:
namely, springtails from our AC Nucleus, our soil creature breeding facility.
The springtails will gobble up the ants’ garbage and bathroom deposits!
I won’t do it just yet, though as I don’t want the springtails to compete with the fire
ants for food I place inside.
I’ll wait for the colony to get bigger and more aggressive, before I start playing God
and introducing other organisms in the mix.
I also can’t wait for the majors and supermajors to arrive, specialized larger workers with
massive heads and brute jaw force for cutting things up and colony protection!
They come much later.
I can’t wait for the Phoenix Empire to receive their first official ant farm, outworld, and
eventually full blown terrarium.
I also can’t wait for the day this colony becomes big enough to feed some real meat
to!
Haha!
But one step at a time, and AC Family, I must say, I love that you all are following the
development of this very humble fire ant colony with me, every step of the way, on their journey
to becoming the most powerful ant kingdom of our Antiverse.
I’ll continue to film their evolution closely.
It’s all very inspiring for me to see, in a world where ants, especially fire ants,
are generally hated and tagged as gross, killed and exterminated as pests, that at least in
this unsuspecting corner of Youtube, ant love thrives and grows with the power of a Phoenix.
Thank you for watching.
It’s ant love forever!
AC Family, our fire ants are on their way up, and it’s great you all are part of this
journey!
So much is in store ahead so if you haven’t yet, SMASH that SUBSCRIBE button and BELL
ICON now and hit ALL so you get notified at every upload, because sometimes Youtube breaks
and doesn’t send out notifications, but crossing fingers things will be fixed.
Also, don’t forget to hit the LIKE button every single time including now.
It would really mean a lot to me.
Thank you, guys!
AC Inner Colony, I have left a hidden cookie for you here, if you would like to watch some
extended play footage of the Phoenix Empire discovering their new water test tube as well
as the colony going about their daily activities in their nest.
And now it’s time for the AC Question of the Week.
Last week, we asked:
Why does an ant colony need protein?
Congratulations to Ruby Raven Gachalife who correctly answered:
Protein helps the larvae grow and the queen to lay more eggs.
Congratulations Ruby, you just won a free Ultimate Ant Keeping handbook from our shop!
In this week’s AC Question of the Week we ask:
What do you look forward to most in the Phoenix Empire’s future?
Leave your answer in the comments section and you could also win a free e-book handbook
from our shop!
Hope you could subscribe to our 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!