Look carefully!
Something truly incredible and beautiful is about to happen.
What you’re looking at here is a pile of developing brood, who’ve been raised within
love by a mighty and royal queen ant, for the past 43 days in this test tube.
Now within the pile, you may notice that brownish pupa.
I’ve been closely following this pupa like a hawk over the past week, because from it
will emerge the first of the queen ant’s most important minions.
The next day, at Day 44, the pupa had darkened.
The moment was near now, and the queen was doing her very best, as she’s been doing
for weeks, to keep all the young together in a tight pile, so they don’t dry out.
She’s been sacrificing and putting her all into raising this first batch of worker ants,
literally giving up her own liquified body tissues, to feed this first generation of
babies, as it was super critical that her first worker ants arrive, in order to help
her pioneer her future ant colony.
The future ant kingdom depended on her steadfast and unwavering motherly care.
It was only a few hours now before this queen ant’s greatest dreams were to come true,
and all of you are about to watch that moment happen for her now.
AC Family, pop the champagne and let’s enjoy the beauty and miracle of ant life, here on
the AntsCanada Ant Channel.
Please SUBSCRIBE to my channel, and hit the BELL icon!
Welcome to the AC Family!
Enjoy!
AC Family, behold our newest worker ant, who officially arrived on Day 45.
Isn’t she so cute?
She’s already quite busy working.
Now, I’ll be needing your help and opinions regarding a decision I need to make for this
burgeoning ant colony, so do stay tuned until the end to be part of this ant colony’s
ultimate fate.
Now, I know you’re all excited to meet our new worker ant here, but before we get to
know her more intimately, as well as watch more worker ants arrive, let’s quickly recap
the exciting journey we’ve all been on, watching this queen ant found this starting
ant colony!
45 days ago, there was a nuptial flight outside my cottage.
Queen ants engaging in their once a year mating swarm.
I caught of few of these queens, and placed them into a jar along with a swarm of male
ants.
On Day 2, the males all died as they had fulfilled their ultimate life purpose of giving their
sperm.
All the queens were placed into test tube setups to start founding their own ant colonies.
By Day 8, some queens had died of natural causes, including mold, mites, and parasitic
maggots, and some just didn’t shed their wings nor lay eggs, but 8 of the 14 queens
that I caught had gone on to break off their wings and lay eggs.
By Day 32, the brood piles of the queens were huge!
Having brood at different stages, including eggs, larvae, and pupae.
It had been 32 days since each of the queens had eaten a proper meal, back at their birth
nest, as I don’t have to feed the queens at this stage because Mother Nature gave them
all they needed to survive this crazy fast.
Each of the queen’s back muscle tissues, which powered their wing muscles during nuptial
flight, were breaking down to provide the queens sustenance, as well as feed their growing
brood by regurgitating a nutritious soup of liquified wing muscle tissue.
Truly awesome to witness!
At Day 39, the pupae and cocoons which formed, were all in development, and AC Family, you’ve
all been so patient, so here we are at Day 45, the arrival of the very first worker ant
of Queen #7.
Isn’t she stunning?
What I find amazing is that despite being only a few hours old as a worker ant, she
seems to already know exactly what to do around the house to help her queen mother raise the
rest of the brood.
Now this worker ant is called a ‘nanitic’, the technical term for a queen ant’s first
generation of workers, that were raised by the queen herself and nourished from the queen’s
own body tissues.
This nanitic’s exoskeleton is actually still hardening, so she appears lighter.
You’ll see over time how she darkens in colour as her exoskeleton hardens, and look!
It looks like a second nanitic is due to arrive soon, as well.
This is great, as they will need the support!
You see, the nanitics are important because they will be the pioneers of the ant colony,
and will eventually take over all the work, including caring for the queen’s future
brood, nest construction, hunting, and defense so that the queen could focus on her sole
job of egg-laying.
But for now, the queen and this one nanitic must work together around the clock to ensure
all the babies are tended to, as you can see them doing here, and AC Family check this
out!
Even if this nanitic is a fully formed adult ant, the queen still needs to feed the
ant her nutritious wing muscle soup!
This nanitic won’t be ready to go out hunting for a meal for at least another week, until
her exoskeleton hardens and she’s got the back up workers ant sisters to join her.
If she were to venture out into the outside world at this point, chances are she’d perish
from all the dangers the outside world had waiting.
Patience was definitely the key, but no worries, the second nanitic was coming soon!
The next day, at Day 46, the pupa was now dark and almost ready to eclose.
If you look carefully, you can see the legs of the pupa start to wiggle!
Our first nanitic here, who was by the way, much darker in colour now, was about to be
joined by her first sister.
I just couldn’t wait, and I’m sure neither could they.
Now AC Family, check out what their founding test tube setup looked like at Day 47.
Welcome to the family, Nanitic #2!
Boy, was she busy working!
Look at her tending to the brood, young larvae and eggs.
I just find this sight to be super cute!
How about you, guys?
The nanitics carefully organize the brood in the best configuration to support maximum
brood health, and it was also kinda nice to see the queen just chilling.
I am not mad, Your Royal Highness!
A well deserved relaxation time indeed!
I mean, this queen has truly been through so much, and I think it will just get a lot
easier for this queen from here on in as the next set of nanitics start arriving.
She had successfully completed the most difficult phase of colony founding: raising the nanitics
to adulthood!
Not all queen ants make it this far in nature, but it seems our royal queen here has done
a marvelous job so far.
And look!
It seems a third nanitic is also arriving soon!
In fact, one thing I’ve noticed was that I could tell which pupae were still young,
and which ones were nearing completion of the pupal stage, by the eye colour.
Young pupae had light caramel-coloured eyes, while mature pupae had dark eyes.
And as I looked at the awesome brood pile, I could see that a bustling fleet of nanitics
were indeed on the way, which was super exciting!
I love this part of ant keeping, the founding stage of an ant colony!
The next step, will be to give this colony, once a few more workers arrive in a few days,
their very first meal, so the queen, too can finally eat after all these weeks of fasting.
I’m sure her stores of wing muscle soup will be running out soo, as she has only enough
to raise the nanitics, and after that they’ll be depending on the ants’ ability to collect
food from outside.
And once the colony is larger with many workers, I can’t wait to finally transfer them into
an actual ant farm and setup!
We have some time to brainstorm what kind of setup we want to move them into.
By the way, I’ve mentioned this in past episodes, but if any of you guys also want
to try keeping ants with me, now is a great time to get into this fun and easy hobby!
But, if you didn’t manage to find any queen ants during nuptial flight this year, 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.
Alright, now as mentioned at the start of the video, I said I’d be needing your help,
guys!
AC Family, here’s where I need your valuable input!
It seems based on your comments on our last episode, that you guys want to keep this queen
and her future colony, and I actually highly agree!
So by popular demand, I’m happy to announce, that this queen and colony will officially
be a resident colony on the channel, but of course, as we always do, guys, as a resident
colony on this ant channel, I feel this queen has truly deserved a better name than simply
Queen #7, so guys, in the comments below, please leave your name suggestions for her
Royal Highness here, this beloved queen ant of ours, and also a name you would like to
suggest for the entire ant colony.
Let’s be creative, guys and think of a cool name for them, as they truly deserve one at
this point!
Your AC Senate and I will look through all your suggestions and choose our top 5 favourites,
for all of us to vote on in a future video!
I can’t wait to see what you guys suggest to name these hard-working and cute ants of
ours.
As for the other queens, they all are also patiently waiting for the arrival of their
first nanitics.
I can’t wait and after scanning over the colonies it does look like that Queen #1 will
be the first to welcome a nanitic.
See the dark eyes through that cocoon?
I’ll be sure to film everything over the next week and report the progress back to
all of you.
Meanwhile, also let me know if you have any ideas as to what to do with these other queens.
But for now, I’ll just close the drawer and allow them all to raise their future ant
kingdoms in peace.
I’ll see you guys again here at the same place and time, next week.
Thank you all for watching, subscribing, 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 Queen #7 and her nanitics.
Go check them out!
And now it’s time for the AC Question of the Week.
Last week, we asked:
What is a meconium?
Congratulations to Sara Hyena who answered:
A larva’s fecal pellet.
Congratulations Sara, 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 a nanitic?
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!