It’s always sad losing a pet, and for us ant keepers, when we lose ant colonies, especially
ones we’ve had for years, it’s truly a sad event.
Today, I announce the loss of one of the greatest O.G. ant colonies of this channel, but there’s
something else I have to share.
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Well, for those of you who’ve been following this channel for awhile, the title of this
video may have come as a shock to you, but it’s true.
All the queens of the original Golden Empire, my long time supercolony of yellow crazy ants
have died, but, I do have some good news, which I’ll get into in just a moment.
I also will be needing all of your help with making a very big decision, so get your voting
fingers ready, guys, and stay tuned for the important voting session taking place later
in this video.
For those of you who are new, the Golden Empire is one of three O.G. ant colonies on this
channel, O.G.’s because for me, they were the first star ant colonies featured on this
channel at the time when we, the AC Family, really grew and hit our first million subscribers.
The first OG ant colony was the Fire Nation, our former fire ant colony, whose queen’s
death anniversary will be this November (Rest in Peace Fire Nation & Queen Solis).
You may know the Fire Nation from our ‘My Fire Ants’ Are Planning an Escape Video’
or ‘Fire Ants Devouring a cockroach While Giving Birth’ video.
The second OG ant colony is the Dark Knights, our black crazy ant supercolony, who are still
alive and well, and technically will continue to survive forever, as these ants don’t
require traditional nuptial flights like regular ants, and queens and males can inbreed within
the nest without genetically inbreeding, a biological DNA hack these black crazy ants
have up their sleeves, so I expect them to never reach their life’s end anytime soon.
However, the Golden Empire, as many of you may know, has had a long and turbulent history.
So long, I prefer to not get into all the details now, but essentially, the colony was
raised in an AC Setup, then moved to their first terrarium we called the Hacienda Del
Dorado, but one day out of nowhere the colony got infected by vampiric, blood-sucking mites,
which reduced the huge supercolony with multiple queens to a weakened colony of a few hundreds.
I managed to isolate a portion of the survivors in quarantine, and treated their vampiric
mites with predatory mites harvested from rhino beetles of all places!
I know, random!
And since then over the course of over a year or so, I’ve been trying to get the colony
to grow back to their huge numbers, and though they grew a little bit over time, for some
reason they weren’t reaching the same numbers they used to be at.
Then finally, the queens began to disappear one by one starting about a month ago, with
the last remaining queen of the colony passing away just last week, leaving a couple hundred
workers to live out the rest of their lives without a queen or brood to care for.
I’m so sorry, AC Family, I tried everything I could, but I do think the mite plague really
weakened the remaining Golden Empire queens, and/or the queens had finally approached the
end of their own lifespans, and simply weren’t the prolific egg-laying machines they used
to be during the Golden Empire’s glory years.
But now AC Family, for the good news.
When I noticed the queens starting to disappear a month ago, I struggled to determine when
the right time to tell you guys was.
In the end, there were two reasons that I chose to wait until now to make the announcement
of the Golden Empire’s passing.
First, I didn’t want to cast a shadow on all the joy we were sharing together over
our Phoenix Empire and their Ember Islands floating mountains paludarium, as that was
the Phoenix Empire’s shining moment in Antiverse history.
But the other bigger reason was, I wanted to make sure the Golden Empire’s legacy
wasn’t fully over, and with the bad news of their passing, I felt we needed a silver
lining, or rather a golden lining.
AC Family, I’m happy to announce that with the remaining 200 or so workers, I did what
I’ve done a couple times in the past with the Golden Empire: Colony fusion!
I was able to obtain another yellow crazy ant colony, and fused them with the remaining
workers of the Golden Empire, instead of just allowing the remaining 200 or so Golden Empire
workers to simply die in their ant farm without purpose.
The fusion was successful, but as you’ve seen in past videos, there’s a bit of a
temporary squabble, a mini ‘Ant War’ if you will, that happens when the two unrelated
yellow crazy ant colonies meet, before the two sides call it a truce and they start acting
like one big supercolony.
And indeed, the new yellow crazy ant colony I introduced ended up forcefully taking our
200 or so Golden Empire workers hostage, and later recruited them into their own supercolony.
And so, guys, I’m super excited for you to meet them all now.
AC Family, behold, the Golden Empire 2.0, or technically 4.0, but you guys know what
I mean.
The entire supercolony is living within this ant farm setup from antscanada.com.
Let’s have a look first at their large ac Ant Tower.
You guys will love this!
As you can see there are several workers running around the surface, busy with nest construction
and various other activities.
I love seeing how active they are.
Pretty sure these ants are from the new batch.
But if you look carefully, there’s something else here that you might find interesting!
There!
See that?
That my friends, is an Ant Cricket, belonging to family Myrmecophilidae, meaning ant-loving
crickets.
This species is Myrmecophilus albicinctus, which amazingly are found exclusively in nests
of yellow crazy ants.
It’s pretty amazing!
They must’ve come in with the new batch, and yes, I say ‘they’, as you’ll be
seeing many more of them when we check out the colony’s mothernest in a little bit.
These wingless, non-chirping crickets, are 100% dependent on the yellow crazy ants they
live with for their survival.
In other words, if I were to separate this little guy from these ants, it would die,
as it wouldn’t be able to even feed on its own.
Get this, guys!
These cute ant crickets take on the colony’s scent and incredibly, the ants actually treat
it like part of the colony, even feeding the crickets through trophallaxis, mouth to mouth,
as the ants would with each other!
Isn’t that crazy?
They are truly beloved Golden Empire pets, that I was pleasantly surprised to see after
the recent colony fusion.
OK moving on now to their AC Outworld.
Lots of activity happening here.
You’ll see many workers scurrying about.
This is where I’ve been feeding them, of course, and the colony has been eating lots.
Here you’ll see them feasting on a roach and over there, you’ll see their sweet jelly
cup, which they love.
But, guys check this out!
Also in this outworld are alates!
See her!
This is a virgin queen ant, known as a queen alate.
She’s born with wings and is simply waiting around for the colony’s nuptial flight to
happen when she can fly away, mate and start a yellow crazy ant colony of her own.
Due to her light colouration, it looks like this queen just recently emerged from her
pupa.
She’ll be much darker in colour in a couple days.
Alates usually don’t emerge from the mothernest, but it looks like she just wanted to check
out our ac Outworld here.
Also in the colony are these male alates, which look a lot smaller and more wasp-like
in appearance.
They’re also waiting for nuptial flight so they can mate with queen alates in the
air before dying, as mating is sadly their only purpose in the ant world.
Enjoy your time, fellas!
So, we’ve seen the ants in the Ant Tower and the Outworld, an ant cricket, and some
alates, so now it’s time to see the mothernest in their ac Hybrid Nest!
Opening the nest, and behold, our newly revitalized Golden Empire.
First, look at the size of those massive queen alate cocoons!
This is actually the first time I’ve ever seen yellow crazy ant alate cocoons!
The new batch came in with a lot of these alate cocoons and they’re just massive!
Pretty cool right?
There you’ll see some regular brood piles on the right.
There’s a male alate running around!
Check out all of those eggs and young larvae being carried by workers!
I just love checking out all these nursemaid workers, acting as babysitters of clutches
of brood.
Within their loving mandibles are cradled the future generation of Golden Empire ants.
There’s even more brood!
Oop, and there’s one of the queens.
It also looks like this is where they've made their temporary graveyard.
Interesting that these ants keep their dead inside the nest, also a good tactic so they
remain discreet from outside predators.
And there’s another queen alate.
This here seems to be the site of a lot of trophallaxis going on, see the ants kissing?
And if you look carefully, there!
Another ant cricket!
There are many ant crickets in this mothernest!
Isn’t it amazing how they roam freely unharmed, treated simply like one of the ants?
There’s another egg laying queen, and a springtail waiting to eat up the colony’s
poop and garbage, and more brood!
Here is one of the most beautiful sights!
Check out this entourage of workers surrounding this queen.
They keep her clean, well fed, protected, and judging from the worker latching on to
her leg, in place!
In the Golden Empire, I believe the workers call the shots as to where the queens are
allowed to be, I’m assuming for their own good.
It’s a common misconception that queen ants have power and make decisions for a colony,
but the reality is, though queen ants are indeed important members of an ant colony,
queen ants actually don’t have much power.
In the world of ants, decisions are generally made collectively as a colony, and not by
any one individual in power.
Interesting, right?
From what I’ve counted, this upgraded, revitalized Golden Empire supercolony has around 20 or
so egg-laying queen ants (I use the term ‘supercolony’ on this channel, by the way, when referring
to a colony with many queen ants).
One thing I’ve been wondering regarding all these alates, though is if yellow crazy
ants are like black crazy ants, in that they can mate with their own within the nest, without
an actual nuptial flight.
The old Golden Empire, to the best of my knowledge, never actually got to the full-blown alate
production stage, so this situation is quite new for me.
Imagine if this supercolony could self-perpetuate and live forever, too, assuming we don’t
have any sudden catastrophes like a mite plague or something.
We’ll see, and keep our fingers crossed.
Now, AC Family, we’ve finally come to the part of the video where I’ll need your help!
It’s time for us to be like the ants, and collectively make a big decision for this
colony.
At the start of the video I mentioned I’ll be needing your votes on something important,
and it’s this: I’ve been wondering, do you guys feel we should keep the name “Golden
Empire” for these ants, as some of these ants here are indeed part of the original
colony, and even the original colony was colony fused twice in their past, yet they still
retained their name Golden Empire?
Let me know your thoughts, AC Council.
Under the pinned comment of this video, please hit the THUMBS UP on the post indicating ‘GOLDEN
EMPIRE’, if you feel these ants should keep their name, or hit the THUMBS UP on the post
indicating ‘NEW NAME’, if you feel the colony needs a new name.
Feel free to leave your reasons as to why you chose the option you did, so we can all
have a look and debate over this.
If the colony takes on a new name, it will lose its official flag which is only given
to outstanding colonies that have stood the test of time and made considerable contributions
to the Antiverse, and won’t be considered the same OG colony.
We’ll be treating it like a brand new colony on the channel, with its own brand new playlist,
as well.
So I guess the bigger question is: when you look at these ants, does it feel like the
soul of the Golden Empire exists here among them, or do they feel like a totally different
colony to you?
Now, if you’re one of the people who feels like this colony should have a new name, do
leave your new name suggestions in the comments, and the AC Senate and I will review them and
choose a top five for all of us to vote on in a future video.
Feel free to also THUMBS UP any name suggestions you see and like that others post, so they
get bumped up where I can see them!
Personally, I’m ok with either option.
It would be cool for these ants to keep their OG status and official flag, still calling
them the Golden Empire, but it could also be cool giving the colony a totally new name,
seeing as this can technically be seen as a fresh start, and perhaps some of you newcomers
might like to know that you’ve been following this newly revived colony from their quote-unquote
“start”.
And while you’re at it, feel free to also leave name suggestions for the ant crickets,
too.
I think they deserve some really cool names, as well, as they are a first on this channel,
and are quite amazing in their own right.
So with lots of brood on the way, many egg-laying queens expanding the colony, even a generation
of alates on the way, and cohabiting nest mates, it looks like the future of the Golden
Empire, or whatever you guys choose to call them, is bright!
And speaking of bright, it seems there’s a commotion starting due to my bright camera
lights.
Yup!
Looks like the colony is starting to move the brood out into the outworld.
Let’s close the nest for now and give them the darkness they love.
The future of this yellow crazy ant colony is in your hands, and I can’t wait to see
what lies ahead for these yellow crazy ants.
Alright, and now to talk about their future terrarium.
AC Family, did you enjoy today’s episode?
I can’t wait to go over my ideas for the future paludarium home for these yellow crazy
ants, and of course you all will be voting, just as we did together for the Phoenix Empire’s
Ember Islands.
I find we’re better decision makers as a group, wouldn’t you say?
If you have any design ideas on what their future home should be, do let me know in the
comments, but otherwise, yellow crazy ant home building and voting starts next week,
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 extended
play footage of the new yellow crazy ants, as well as a certain surprise, so do check
it 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:
What is giving our shrimp their new colour?
Congratulations to • Finley • who answered:
Their diet!
Their color depends on the things they eat, so now they are brown.
Congratulations • Finley •, you just won a free Ultimate Ant Keeping Handbook from
our shop!
In this week’s AC Question of the Week we ask:
What makes ant crickets different from regular crickets?
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!