I’m totally stoked, guys!
The first worker ants of what will be the pioneering generation of our weaver ant colony
are finally arriving!
This here is our beautiful queen weaver ant, whom two weeks ago had laid a cute batch of
eggs, which hatched into some healthy larvae a week later, and as we hoped, several of
the larvae have pupated, which means our queen’s first worker ants are set to arrive any day
now!
We on the channel have all been waiting in anticipation, no pun intended, for the arrival
of this first generation of worker ants, known as nanitics, because their arrival is key
to the future success of both our gorgeous green weaver ant queen here and that of our
future weaver ant colony.
But there were a few things that didn’t seem right, or at least, that I didn’t expect
to happen this week, during this critical stage of the colony founding process, and
that our royal green queen herself also found quite surprising, that may also shock all
of you!
Join us as we follow how a weaver ant queen starts her own colony from just a batch of
eggs to eventually a thriving colony of ants that live in the trees.
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AC Family, now before we continue on checking out our royal queen’s new pupae, I have
an amazing announcement!
Her Majesty in all her green glory has an official name!
Last week, I asked you guys to help me decide on an official name for our beautiful green
queen ant here, and your AC Senate and I chose our Top 5 favourites from all your awesome
name suggestions in the comments, and you guys all voted!
And so, AC Family, you the AC Council have spoken, and I am happy to announce that our
beloved green weaver ant queen from now on shall be called the “Jade Empress”.
I love that name!
Great choice, guys!
Now with the arrival of the Jade Empress’ pupae whom we are about to check out in a
sec, as mentioned, there was something odd and a bit unexpected that I noticed regarding
our Jade Empress here and her ever growing brood, and perhaps you guys already noticed
it, too.
Plus, AC Family, I’ll be needing your help and opinions on something later in the video,
and just a little heads up: big shocker, coming up by the end of this video, that left our
Jade Empress a little perturbed!
But for now, let’s meet our soon-to-arrive VIP weaver ant nanitics, the pupae, shall
we?
Good evening, beloved Jade Empress!
We come with love and peace to check on your progress.
Let’s have a look at her growing brood pile.
I counted about 11 eggs, 5 young larvae, 8 mature larvae, and the brood stage that excites
me personally the most: the pupae, of which I counted about six.
It’s crazy to see how they already resemble ants in fetal position, complete with head,
antennae, legs, body parts, and brownish beady eyes.
I’m actually pretty astounded by how quickly the brood went from egg to this stage of development.
Our first nanitic workers are set to arrive any day now, it seems!
Now the speed of this brood development is pretty quick, as far as ants go.
Some ants like carpenter ants take two months to get from egg to adult worker.
Weaver ant brood seems to grow pretty fast!
And it makes sense, because in the wild all of this would be happening pretty much out
in the open, on an open leaf.
If you’re new to weaver ants or this weaver ant series, our Jade Empress here belongs
to one of the coolest ant species on the planet, in my opinion.
Instead of creating colonies and nests within the soil, like most other ants, they live
up in trees or bushes, and create these truly impressive leaf basket nests.
The workers cooperatively pull leaves together and then use the silk produced by their pupating
larvae to glue the leaves together.
The behaviour is what gives weaver ants their name.
We’ve witnessed all of this back when we owned a weaver ant colony we named the Emerald
Empire, which had to be released due to complications during pandemic when my city was locked down
and I had to downsize my ant colony collection due to lack of feeders.
But I’ve been waiting for the perfect opportunity to bring weaver ants back to the channel,
which is why catching our Jade Empress was a true gift!
But, in the wild, she would be founding her first batch of workers on an open leaf, since
she herself doesn’t have the luxury yet of an army of workers to help build her a
nest.
For this reason, as I was saying, it makes sense that for weaver ants having fast-developing
brood is a good adaptation, because it increases the chances of colony success, because the
sooner you can raise your first generation of worker ants, the nanitics to adulthood,
the sooner they can start building a leaf nest and better your chances of a successful
colony.
So I was pretty happy we made it this far!
Weaver ants are notoriously known to be hard in the ant keeping hobby to raise from just
a single pregnant queen ant, and a lot isn’t known about how weaver ant colonies start,
which is why this new weaver ant series is a pretty valuable record to science.
Speaking of which, AC Family, now to show you something that actually surprised me,
that I didn’t expect on this weaver ant colony founding journey.
Have a look!
So, we, the AC Family, have been patiently awaiting the building of the queen’s silk
chamber, a protective chamber the queen creates for herself and her brood, as seen in these
photos from Project Noah.org.
I myself have seen weaver ant queens create this silk chamber using the silk produced
by her first mature larvae, from past attempts at raising a weaver ant colony from just a
queen.
However, as you can see here, our Jade Empress, has completely just skipped this step.
I’ve been patiently waiting for the Jade Empress’ larvae to reach pupating stage
so I could film her spinning this legendary silk chamber, but I was shocked to see that
the oldest larvae have already pupated, and it doesn’t seem like she built that silk
chamber around her.
And see, guys, this is why it is awesome that we’re following our Jade Empress’ journey
like this because we just discovered that weaver ant queens don’t always spin silk
chambers for themselves!
My guess, is because this plastic bottle I’m keeping her in is completely sealed, she didn’t
feel a need to spin a silk chamber to protect her.
There is no wind in this spacious bottle and the humidity is kept pretty constant, so why
have the larvae expend the extra silk to lose valuable protein, which could go on to developing
bigger and better quality nanitics?
Good call, Jade Empress, good call!
So, this tells us then that in the wild, if weaver ant queens happen to find an opportune
place in the trees that offer a pretty constant environment that is pretty well protected,
like a deep hole in a tree trunk or a curl or an ideal fold in a leaf, then they can
choose to not build themselves a web chamber.
That’s a pretty neat observation if you ask me.
Now, in case you’re wondering about air, and how she breathes if this bottle is completely
enclosed, I’m about to show you what I do now.
So insects aren’t like us that need a lot of air all the time.
They take in a very small amount of oxygen and expel a small amount of carbon dioxide.
All I need to do is open this bottle for a few seconds every few days and it’s enough
for the queen and her brood to survive.
Let’s do that now.
Jade Empress, don’t fear.
I’m just here to deliver you a quick gift of new air.
Unscrewing the bottle cap.
I need to be very gentle so I don’t scare or stress her out too much.
Alright, now to allow some air into the bottle…
…and that’s it!
Screwing the bottle cap back on.
Our queen is still as protective as ever at this stage over her brood, as she grabs a
stray larva to place closer into the brood pile.
Such a good queen mother our Jade Empress is!
I think she knows we mean no harm, though.
I do try to keep her comfort in mind and to not be too intrusive when going in to observe
her and film her like this.
I realize, she’s pretty weak at this point, as she hasn’t eaten since she last left
her birth colony a few weeks ago for her mating flight, and has been subsisting since then,
off muscle stores in her back, which her body also has been liquifying in order to feed
and nourish her young all this time.
Her long fast is soon coming to an end, though, as soon as her adult nanitics emerge from
their pupae, and they proceed to go out and hunt for their first true meal, as well as
take care of her and her brood, and finally build a legit leaf nest for themselves.
Which by the way, brings me to where I need your help, guys.
So, AC Family, let me know what you think of this plan regarding our next step at ensuring
we provide the best environment and conditions for our growing weaver ant colony here.
So, I don’t intend on moving this colony to a legit miniature tree or plant just yet.
You see, in ant keeping, it’s sort of a golden rule to never relocate an ant colony
too early, while they are still young.
The common practice is to allow the starting ant colony to move out on their own into a
more suitable setup fit for a fledgling colony, typically when they reach a good worker force
size.
I usually move a new ant colony into a proper setup when they’ve reached anywhere from
50-100 workers.
It’s the most effective and sure-fire way to ensure the colony succeeds in a new and
larger space.
Moving a colony out of their founding location too early, whether it be a test tube, or in
our case, a plastic bottle, is one of the biggest mistakes in ant keeping, and it almost
always leads to the entire colony dying out.
It’s extra critical for these weaver ants, because they are so hard to grow into large
mature colonies from this founding stage, and moving them out too early in my mind will
surely spell death to the colony.
So, I was thinking perhaps we raise the colony to as many workers as we can within this bottle,
and once the nanitics finally arrive, I can easily drill an appropriately sized hole into
the bottle cap for the adult nanitics to exit if they so choose, and place the entire bottle
into a large terrarium where I can place their food.
Perhaps I can fasten the bottle up on a branch so it seems like a place up in a tree or bush.
That way, the bottle can remain breezeless, humid, and unchanging for the Jade Empress
and fledgling colony to develop further in comfort.
What do you guys think of that idea?
Once the weaver ant colony is big enough, I can simply just plant a small tree adjacent
to their bottle and the weavers can move on their own when they choose into the tree.
The advantage I see with continuing to raise them in the bottle is we can continue to see
and film them as they grow, and also see if their numbers are increasing or decreasing.
Anyway, let me know what you guys think of this strategy in the comments.
If you feel that this is not a good idea, and that I should just get them to move out
of this bottle and into a tree or bush somehow right away once the first workers arrive,
do let me know, though this route seems a bit too risky to me.
I’m trying my best to not make a mistake, because again, rearing weaver ant colonies
from just this stage is extremely hard and there isn’t a lot of information out there
as to how to do it or how it happens in the wild.
Let’s hope for the best for our Jade Empress and her future colony.
I’ll make sure to keep an eye on her and with your guidance, hopefully raise a successful
weaver ant colony from her.
Now before I get into the thing I mentioned at the start of the video, the big shocker
that left our Jade Empress feeling perturbed, I wanted to mention for all of you who’ve
been wanting to get into the ant keeping hobby with me, because, as many of you have probably
deduced by now, it’s an awesome hobby that is super educational, full of discovery, and
very fulfilling,
Did you know 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.
Also, I wanted to quickly mention that I’m actually flying to the US this summer, to
hopefully meet you guys in person and talk about ants.
I’m actually quite thrilled because I’ll be part of an event called Animal Con taking
place in Orlando, Florida from August 26-28.
It’s this super cool expo, which will be just full of all your favourite animal youtube
creators all in one place.
So, guys, mark your calendars and visit the Animal Con website I’ll place in the description
and get your tickets now!
I can’t wait to meet you, AC Family, in person and hear about all your awesome ant
stories and colonies.
I’ll also be selling our AC ant farm start kits, doing a presentation on how to get started
on ant keeping, and will be participating in a Q&A!
Can’t wait to see you guys there!
Now, AC Family, something pretty major happened this week.
Our Jade Empress noticed it, too, almost immediately.
Something just wasn’t quite right, that she at first couldn’t figure out.
It was something in her surroundings.
As she looked around, she noticed that outside her bottle things looked a little…
different.
The nice human kitchen environment she had grown used to was no more, and it seemed her
founding chamber had been transported to somewhere new.
As she continued to scan the outside world beyond her bottle, she began to realize that
she was indeed in a new place.
Somewhere, dark, and spacious…
Very, very spacious…
…somewhere extremely spacious…