Have you ever wondered what it looks like when a queen fire ant lays an egg?
I know, perhaps not the first thing you think about in the morning, but believe me, it’s
super cool and you’ll be seeing just that today!
Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Phoenix Empire, my young and growing pet fire ant colony in
a test tube, that is on the cusp of a massive population explosion!
The Queen, whom we’ve named on this channel the Ember Empress, blankets herself in piles
of her own brood, as she continues to lay eggs non-stop, quietly amassing a powerful
fire ant army.
But for weeks, I’ve been dying to catch the Ember Empress in the actual act of laying
an egg, but haven’t been lucky.
That was until this week.
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Now in all my years of ant keeping, I’ve only been able to catch a queen ant laying
an egg twice, but never have I been able to capture and witness the event properly magnified
in 4K video before.
Now guys, I didn’t know it yet, but the egg-laying process for fire ant queens is
truly unique and epic!
Do keep on watching until the end to see what I mean!
From the moment I first received this fledgling fire ant colony, catching the intimate moment
of the queen laying an egg was one of my top goals, especially because a lot of you AC
Family commented saying you wanted to see the Ember Empress lay an egg!
Now you would think with a brood pile that grows bigger and bigger every day, this would
be easy to film.
Well, not so much, I’ve found.
There were a few challenges.
First, no matter how much I waited the queen would always wait for me to leave and all
vibrations gone, before she would lay an egg.
Second, timing was of the essence.
You see the queen has egg-laying bouts, days when she’s egg laying and days when she’s
off.
Third, she hates lights and sadly I needed to light the nest in order to film her egg-laying.
Finally, she had to be at just the right angle, and her constantly moving army of workers
and hefty brood had to remain out of the way for me to properly catch the moment.
This in particular drove me insane, which you’ll be seeing in a bit.
But this week, it seemed the stars were aligned, AC Family.
We were bound to witness something truly magical!
It was a typical day in the City of Ashes, kingdom of the Phoenix Empire.
Several workers were busy feasting on a dead mealworm in the Fireforest, while others gathered
water and collected liquid sugar.
All these yummy goods were delivered to the repletes and aquapletes, the Empire’s living
food and water caches, who then went on to feed the growing brood and our Royal Highness,
the Ember Empress.
It was promising to see that they were feeding the queen so well, as she is the most important
member of the colony to keep nourished.
The Ember Empress’ only job is to produce those eggs!
She does nothing else.
Within her fat gaster lies a special organ that stores all the sperm she collected during
her single mating flight a couple months ago, and keeps it viable for years and years, like
a cryogenic chamber within her, so she can continue to lay fertilized eggs for the rest
of her life.
The colony’s true first generation of workers, known as the nanitics, are all reaching the
end of their lives and dying out now.
I counted 7 dead nanitics in the colony’s graveyard, but judging from that massive brood
pile, tonnes of fire ants are on the way, and this new generation is bigger and stronger
than the last.
Take a look at this shot, guys!
The older fire ants are smaller and hang out together, cleaning themselves after a hunting
spree outside, while the newer, younger fire ant generation seen to the right, who simply
ate better food growing up, are larger.
In fact, I think I even saw a couple majors with larger than normal heads in the colony
now!
Cool right?!
There’s no denying the Phoenix Empire is prolific and quickly growing in population,
but with the growing number of visual obstructions, and more opportunities for the Ember Empress
to be concealed, I felt this meant my dreams of filming the queen laying an egg were becoming
less and less probable.
AC Family, that was until I saw this.
The Ember Empress had buried her head like an ostrich into a dark spot of the cotton.
Well, that’s a great way to feel like you’re in the dark!
Hehe!
But it was in that moment, I noticed the very tip of her gaster.
At first I admired the cool pointed shape of it.
But then, I began to notice that the point began to grow.
It was the Ember Empress’ stinger!
How intriguing!
I always wondered if fire ant queens had a stinger, as I’ve never been stung by one
before, but I now had my answer!
But as the stinger appeared to be coming out more and more, mixed with some weird contractions
towards the tip of her gaster, my heart jumped into my throat!
Oh my gosh!
Is she laying an egg?
I wasn’t sure as I had no idea what signs to look for.
Suddenly, she began to flex at her pedicle (petiole) bringing her gaster inward in a
sort of fetal position, her sharp stinger out in full extension.
Oh my gosh, she’s totally laying an egg, I said to myself!
For a few moments I watched totally holding my breath, as she stood still.
Was she actually going to lay an egg?
And it was in that moment that a worker had dropped a larva right in the worst place ever!
The queen flexed her gaster once more, stinger stretched out and wobbling now as if it was
accommodating something coming through, and when I was able to turn the test tube just
a little in order to move the larva out of the way, a worker had gone in and plucked
the newly laid egg to carry to the egg pile!
Noooo!
I totally missed it!
The Ember Empress’ stinger was now retracted back into her gaster and I felt as though
I had missed spotting a unicorn!
That darned larva!
Ugh!
Anyway, the cool thing was I now knew what signs to look out for!
Fire ant queens on the verge of laying an egg extend out their stingers and have visible
contractions!
I also knew today was an egg-laying day!
Awesome!
The question now was: when was she going to lay next?
The Ember Empress had stuck her head into another dark spot, and I noticed that a worker
was cleaning her gaster, and I had to look twice.
When the worker had moved out of the way I spotted the queen’s stinger once again visible
and coming out!
No way!
Could she be laying an egg again?
Workers were bustling all around her.
No!
If she was about to lay an egg again, this was such a bad angle.
Plus, these workers would totally be blocking her again for sure!
The stinger began to poke out more and more coupled with the gaster contractions.
The ants were such an obstruction!
How I wished I were Ant-man at that moment so I could command the ants to get out of
the flippin’ way already!
But AC Family, within the crazy confusion of legs, brood, and bodies, watch what I saw!
Booyah!
She laid an egg.
Did you guys see it?
It was a little obscured, but we saw it!
And it hadn’t even been a few seconds, before a trusty worker came along, picked it up,
and carried it to the official egg pile!
How amazing!
That was the very first time I’d ever seen a fire ant queen lay an egg!
The great thing I learned was that she laid this egg just ten minutes after she laid the
first egg!
Did this mean that in ten minutes, our Ember Empress would lay another?
I wanted to try my luck and get a better shot if so!
Ten minutes later, the queen lay still, her head once again in the dark.
I watched the tip of her gaster religiously for any signs of a stinger or contractions.
There was nothing.
For a very long time, I just sat there waiting and watching the Ember Empress.
It was amazing to think that she was the seed that would birth an enormous colony of millions
of ants over the many years of her life.
Generations upon generations of fire ants, will all have been born from her.
It amazed me to think that my previous fire ant colony, named the Fire Nation, who grew
large enough to consume whole animals, once started off as a humble and growing colony
in a test tube like this.
Mother Nature is truly miraculous and beautiful.
An hour went by with no signs of a stinger, but just as I was about to pack up and conclude
that her egg-laying was done for the night, I saw what looked like some contractions and
the point of a stinger!
OMG!
She was laying again!
She got up and flexed at her pedicle.
It was such a bad angle though and I knew we’d miss the egg-laying sight if I didn’t
do something, so I gently rotated the test tube, and that was when the Ember Empress
did something awesome!
She pushed the brood that was blocking the shot away.
She was allowing us to see this time.
Ants were running all around and I feared they’d get in the way again, but AC Family,
check out what I saw.
And just like that an egg was laid, and was the newest member added to the Phoenix Empire’s
growing family.
Wasn’t that amazing?!
I was happy that we could finally catch it, and happy that all of you guys could see it,
too.
The Ember Empress didn’t lay another egg, for the next hour so I went to bed.
But, I felt grateful to have witnessed something that happens billions of times every day,
underground within the sacred darkness of ant nests all over the world.
I love that you guys had the chance to witness with me how awesome the miracle of fire ant
birth is, something we don’t get to see every day.
It’s why I love ant keeping so much.
The world may see these little insects as pests and a terrible nuisance, and admittedly
they certainly can be.
But watching a colony grow within an ant setup has given me an entirely new perspective on
them.
They’re just trying to live out their lives and survive like the rest of us on the planet.
It’s not their fault they end up at your picnics, build ant hills in your yard, and
sting you when you trample on their turf.
They’re just trying to live out their lives and do their thing, conquering and thriving,
in a world of giants, one egg at a time.
And as this fire ant colony the Phoenix Empire does become that conquering and thriving colony,
you can count on me to film them every step of the way.
Thank you for watching, and supporting the ants.
It’s ant love forever!
AC Family, wasn’t that cool?
So much is in store ahead for this ant colony and others in the Ant Room, 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 I believe notifications seem to be broken but the Youtube support
team is on it.
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 an update
on the Golden Empire, my yellow crazy ant colony that is actually recovering from vampiric
mites.
Many of you have been asking about them!
Just a quick announcement: if you’ve wanted to get into ant keeping, now’s the time!
Just use the coupon code “antloveforever” to get 10% off all AC ant farms and equipment
at AntsCanada.com!
Promo ends March 1st so get your ant keeping gear at AntsCanada.com now.
Anting season and nuptial flights start in the Northern Hemisphere this month!
And now it’s time for the AC Question of the Week.
Last week, we asked:
Name one thing you love about the Phoenix Empire’s way of life.
Congratulations to Owen Clark who answered:
I love how each ant has their own special job
that is important to the whole colony.
Congratulations Owen, you just won a free Ultimate Ant Keeping handbook from our shop!
In this week’s AC Question of the Week we ask:
What new thing did we discover about fire ant queens when laying eggs?
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 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!