Guys, I’ll need your eyes!
Today, we’re going on a fire ant queen hunt, and you might be able to win a special prize.
Welcome to the AntsCanada Ant Channel.
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Enjoy!
For those of you who are wondering about this colony’s epic Avatar-themed floating mountains
paludarium discussed in last week’s video, I’ll be getting to that in a sec, but guys,
for today’s video, feel free to get comfortable and relax because this video is another one
of those super relaxing, drama-free, and strangely satisfying ant watching videos, which I know
a lot of you guys love.
I know I love them!
But guys, I’ll be needing your eyes to help me find the queen ant today.
I personally failed to find her while filming this, but perhaps you guys might be able to,
because in the past to my surprise, some of you have proven to have the sharpest of eyes
at queen spotting, like when some of you spotted this fire ant queen here.
So why don’t we make this a fun game?!
How does this sound?
If one of you manages to spot the queen somewhere in this video, leave the timestamp in the
comments, and if you’re correct, you can be chosen to win a free ac ant farm from antscanada.com!
How does that sound?
Alright, let’s begin.
So if you’re just joining us, this is my pet fire ant colony called the Phoenix Empire,
with hundreds of thousands of ants now, and they’re scheduled to move into a massive
terrarium that I am working on with all the subscribers of this channel, that is Avatar-themed,
complete with floating mountains and bioluminescent decor.
As an update on that, I’m currently waiting for more materials, decor, and the floating
mountains to be constructed, as well as trying to research what the best combo of aquatic
life is for the water portion of the paludarium.
But, once the colony moves into this massive terrarium, I won’t be able to spot the queen
again, whose name is the Ember Empress, whom we’ve watched amass this entire empire of
ants from day 1.
And so every day now, I’ve been trying my best to find her, before the colony’s great
move into their Avatar paludarium where we definitely won’t be able to see her again.
Is it strange to say that I actually miss her?
It’s been almost five months, since we last spotted the Ember Empress when the colony
moved out of their founding test tube and into their first soil ant farm, after which
we never spotted the Ember Empress again.
I sometimes would be paranoid and question if she was actually still alive!
So, this week I had a plan!
I suspected the queen was hiding somewhere within the largest body of soil of their setup,
here within their ac Outworld.
She could possibly have also been hanging out in the colony’s ac Ant Tower or their
Hybrid Nest Mini, but no matter how hard I’ve tried to look I can’t seem to spot her in
these sections of the setup.
So, my plan then was to take this ac plug attached to some smaller tubing and block
one of the exits from the outworld, which would then make this exit the only way in
and out of their outworld.
Then all I needed to do was pour a little water slowly into their outworld, not enough
to cause a flood, but just enough to get them into a rain response, and have the colony
move out of their outworld and into the other drier nests through this tube.
My 4K macro camera can go right in at ant-level, so we too can be like the fire ants hanging
out among the empire through this whole emigration process!
So the water has been added now and the fire ants are starting to move much more quickly,
with greater urgency as they enter the rain response, and hopefully we’ll be able to
see the queen move out along with the rest of the colony.
Crossing our fingers!
One of the first things you’ll notice is that the fire ant workers are of different
sizes.
This is a quality called polymorphism, where this species of ant has different sized workers.
Some are smaller specializing in general tasks and great with caring for smaller babies,
which you’ll see a lot more of coming up, as well as really large worker ants, called
majors and supermajors, which specialize in defense and cutting food items or digging.
There were several times in this video where I thought I had spotted the queen, but they
were really just supermajors.
Now at first, the colony seemed to be confused as they started to bring some brood inside
the outworld towards the water, which I found to be a bit strange.
Perhaps some of the brood in other areas were dry and needed the moisture, but in no time,
the colony began moving the whole colony in the same direction outward.
Isn’t it just satisfying watching them move the brood?
I dunno, for me it is!
It’s strangely relaxing and hypnotic.
I can actually fall asleep watching them like this, and I admittedly dozed off a few times
while filming this video.
Feel free to doze off anytime, too.
I won’t be offended.
Hehe!
What I find super cool about watching the ants like this is that I can really appreciate
how the entire colony is in sync.
There’s a sort of synergy going on, a “hive mind” some call it, where the ants act as
a superorganism.
Singly the ants are cool, but to really appreciate the brilliance that is the ant, I feel you
need to step back and watch them act as a whole colony.
The colony in its entirety is the organism, the animal, and each ant is simply a part
of that constantly growing, flowing, eating, reproducing animal, kinda like cells of a
body.
In fact, as you may have seen in one of our recent videos where I isolated a single ant
from its colony for 12 hours, it pretty much stopped moving entirely and went dormant without
the rest of the colony to give it purpose.
An ant colony is truly a superorganism.
OK, the brood is being transported in greater quantity now.
What’s also interesting is that like nerve synapses in a human body, the ants also have
a communication system that binds them all together.
It’s pheromones, basically biochemicals produced by glands in their bodies, which
deliver specific messages.
It’s all automatic, instinctual, and very effective particularly within a huge, operating
colony like the Phoenix Empire here.
Once water is dropped into the outworld, it’s only a matter of seconds before the entire
colony is informed and this rain response occurs in full effect.
Pretty cool to think that the ants have their own version of the internet, only it’s via
biochemicals floating about and not wifi signals.
Ahhhh ok the ants are trying to bury my camera lens!
Noooo!
They’re so clever.
They don’t want us to see their queen.
OK, I’m going to speed up this footage just a little bit, but not too much that we can’t
see the queen in case she whizzes by, but do keep those eyes peeled and enjoy the ant
watching.
Did any of you guys spot her yet?
Let me know.
Let’s keep watching.
Wow!
Look at the size of that supermjaor.
So neat seeing these tank-sized workers!
Actually, at one point a supermjaor came right up to inspect my lens.
Yikes!
Imagine being their size and being cornered by one of these massive soldiers!
No, thank you!
Now I’m actually not sure why the ants are deciding to pile soil and debris up against
my lens but at least we can still see the traffic passing by.
The good thing is these ants haven’t tagged my lens as an enemy or intruder so they’re
pretty calm and aren’t blocking the way much.
So at this point I noticed that the colony was no longer transporting brood which meant
that either there was no brood left to transport which I found very unlikely, or that the colony
had decided there was no longer a need to move, and that the water level wasn’t really
a threat, so if by now you guys haven’t spotted the queen, to me that means she’s
still in the ac Outworld and dry and staying put, or she was actually indeed hanging out
all this time in the Hybrid Nest Mini or ac Ant Tower.
Alright, I’m gunna let this run for a bit longer for you guys to watch and enjoy, and
maybe the queen will appear for us if she hasn’t yet.
OK, and that concludes today’s ant watching video!
Did you spot the queen anywhere?
Let me know if you did, but I think today’s just another one of those days that she’s
eluded us.
I could be wrong, as it’s happened before.
But if not, hopefully we can spot her next time!
Thank you guys for watching and making it this far, as this video has been running for
a long time now.
Do stay tuned for more updates on this colony’s future Avatar-themed paludarium, and we’ll
see you next week!
It’s ant love forever!
AC Family, did you enjoy today's relaxing ant watching session and queen ant hunt?
So much is ahead for this fire ant colony, 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, because I think
notifications are broken again.
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 an update
on some of my other ants and critters in my Ant Room, as it’s been awhile since I’ve
updated you guys on them, so go 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:
Why do the floating mountains need to be hollow?
Congratulations to Yitschak Hassine who answered:
So the ants can live in them.
Congratulations Yitschak Hassine, you just won a free Ultimate Ant Keeping Handbook from
our shop!
In this week’s AC Question of the Week we ask:
What are pheromones?
Leave your answer in the comments section and you could win a free Ultimate Ant Keeping
Handbook E-book 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!