I don’t know about you guys, but there’s been a lot of very angering, stressful, and
terrible things all over social media these days, and it’s all been quite a lot to deal
with.
It’s why in times like these, I turn to my ants to help me relax and balance.
For a few minutes, join me for a guided de-stressing session, through some simple and relaxing
ant watching.
No drama, no stress, just satisfying and hypnotic scenes of ants.
You’ll be surprised how good you feel afterward.
So let’s begin.
Welcome to the AntsCanada ant channel.
Please SUBSCRIBE to my channel, and hit the BELL icon.
Welcome to the AC Family!
Enjoy!
If you’re new here, welcome!
I’m AntsCanada, and this is the Phoenix Empire, our fire ant colony, we’ve raised
together on this channel over the past four months from just a single queen ant with eggs
in a test tube.
They’re living in a very expansive setup, which keeps getting bigger and bigger as the
colony grows, but today we’ll focus on watching them in this AC Hybrid Nest from antscanada.com,
an ant farm for viewing and housing pet ant colonies.
You guys have officially named it via your votes last week, the “Magma Chambers”.
I love that name.
Good call, guys!
Inside the nest, it’s pretty cool watching all the fire ants going about their various
activities, wouldn’t you say?
The colony looks so busy, with so much going on everywhere, but somehow it’s almost hypnotic.
Now guys, try this.
For a moment, look at just one ant, the very first ant you zero in on, keep your eye on
it, and watch what it’s doing.
What do you think that ant’s primary objective is at the moment?
Is it preoccupied with caring for the young?
Is it communicating with another ant or traveling somewhere?
Is it cleaning itself or resting?
I love imagining what the ants are thinking as they go about doing their thing.
Let’s move to this chamber.
In this brood pile you’ll see mature larvae, and pupae, and these yellowish pupae are just
moments away from becoming adult worker ants.
It only takes a couple of weeks for ant to go from egg laid by the queen to adult worker
ant.
I wonder what the newly eclosed ants think when they enter this world we house them in.
If only they could realize that millions of giants around the world, you and I, are watching
them.
Feel free to take a few moments to enjoy the action in this room.
OK let’s move to another room.
This room is a little different.
Less crowded, but also decorated with some gravel stones to the side.
Those holes on the floor are for hydration, as water evaporates up from a hydration chamber
below.
The ants here are enjoying the humidity.
That huge thing there is a piece of cockroach leg from which they’d been feeding on.
It will be moved into the colony’s garbage pile later today.
Anyway, this is an interesting room, but let’s move on.
This here is another corner room, very peaceful and a tonne of brood.
There appear to be several pupae, ready to eclose into adult workers.
Perhaps one day we’ll film the process.
I’m sure it takes a few hours.
Hey, well looky here.
It’s our lucky day, guys.
Here is an ant eclosing from its pupal stage and emerging into its first moments as an
adult ant.
Welcome to the world, young fire ant.
You’ve got lots to explore and enjoy.
Here’s a connecting room, again full of brood piles.
It’s uncertain how the ants decide where to store brood, but it does seem like the
ants have a system and place the brood in locations according to hydration and temperature
needs.
If a baby seems dry, they move it to a more humid location, and if it needs less humidity,
the ants move them to another drier location.
They’re so caring to the young, and it’s amazing to think that no egg, larva, or pupa
is neglected or left out, even if they happen to be somewhere at the bottom of the pile.
Now check this out, guys!
That is one big mother of a larva!
No, it’s not a queen ant larva, but just the larva of a supermajor.
You may notice that some of the worker ants are extra large in size, like this worker
standing right next to it.
These are called the supermajors, equipped with huge heads and bodies to help with defense,
transporting heavy items, and cutting up tough food.
Supermajor larvae are massive babies!
The ants seem to use every useful available space in the nest, including this rather tight
room here.
I’m unsure why ants like tight spaces, but they do and it makes them feel secure.
No claustrophobic ants in this colony!
Now this area of the nest is a bit more airey.
There’s a brood pile, but there’s enough space for a column of ants to get by and pass
through to get to other rooms.
Again, this part of the nest is nice and humidified with its perforated floor, which opens up
to one of the busier hallways of the nest.
Wow take a look at how busy this part of the nest is!
The workers seem to be in quite the rush to move some brood out of a nearby chamber.
I love watching ants move their brood.
It’s so therapeutic and relaxing.
Don’t you think?
Look at them.
This here is one of my favourite spots in the nest to ant watch.
The traffic here is pretty fast and flowing.
It’s in this atrium chamber where the ants have several options to travel and choose
where they want to go within the nest.
I wonder how the ants know and if they’ve created some kind of mental map of their home.
In the wild, ant nests can run several meters into the ground with up to thousands of tunnels
and chambers.
They surely need to have some kind of navigational or mapping system built into them!
What do you guys think?
And now we’ve come to the end of our tour with this chamber here, which appears to contain
some of the youngest of the brood.
I see here young larvae and I believe possibly some eggs, which means the queen isn’t too
far away.
Now I tried to look for the queen, but couldn’t find her.
It’s been months since I’ve seen her, which is typical for an ant colony this big.
They hide her well, and are quick to move her out when I come looking.
But luckily we have lots of footage of her in the colony’s early stages, and let’s
cross our fingers, guys and hope we see her next time.
They’re starting to move the brood out now, so let’s close the nest and conclude this
ant watching session.
So, tell us.
Do you feel better?
More relaxed?
I know I do every time I watch these ants.
I have always felt ant watching to be a very calming and healthy activity to do, kind of
like meditation.
I do it regularly, now more than ever, and I hope you guys enjoyed this ant watching
session as much as I did.
If you, too would like to get into pet ant keeping, and would like to seriously keep
a healthy ant colony of your own at home, feel free to visit us at antscanada.com.
Starting the hobby now is perfect because it’s currently nuptial flight/breeding season
in the Northern hemisphere and pregnant queen ants are everywhere.
I have helpful tutorials on getting started on this channel, as well as on the antscanada
website.
Until next week, AC Family, stay safe and always remember, it’s ant love forever.
AC Family, did you enjoy today’s different and relaxing episode?
So much more videos of ants are ahead so if you haven’t yet, do SMASH 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 see scenes
of some other relaxing project tanks & terrariums I’ve been working on but haven’t shared
on the channel yet!
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:
Name one thing you love about the Phoenix Empire’s territories, the City of Ashes.
Congratulations to Life like Schleich who answered:
The Hybrid Nest
Congratulations Life like Schleich, you just won a free Ultimate Ant Keeping handbook from
our shop!
In this week’s AC Question of the Week we ask:
How do the fire ants get their nest humidity?
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!