Why hello, AC Family.
It's a pleasure to meet you, well formerly anyway.
I believe you know me quite well, but this is my first time speaking with you directly.
You may be wondering where my pet human, whom you call AntsCanada, may be this week.
Don't worry, AntsCanada is off doing other things for us, but should be back next week.
You know, it's so strange calling him that: "AntsCanada".
We, the Fire Nation refer to him as "The Symbiont".
Such a predictable and dramatic Symbiont he is, wouldn't you say?
Always gushing over creatures and stumbling mindlessly into various drama that results
from his own choices.
I mean, dare I mention that disastrous mix up last week, when he tried to introduce two
crayfish that were sold to him as a breeding pair, but were actually two different species
AND both male?
Haha!
How awkward.
Anyway, enough about him.
How rude of me.
Let me introduce myself.
My name is "Solis", Queen Mother of the Fire Nation.
I gather, you may know my army quite well, but I personally don't appear much on the
channel, as I prefer to be the mastermind in the background.
But in this shot from a few videos back, this right here is me with my royal cohort tending
to my every need.
I'm here today to show you what it's like being a queen ant, being THE queen ant, running
the most powerful ant colony on Youtube.
I also have a big secret to reveal to you, that AntsCanada has been hiding from all of
you since the beginning.
It may completely blow your mind, but I'll be serving that tea, in a little bit.
So Happy Mother's Day to you and your mothers.
As you may or not know being a mother is not an easy task.
Being the queen mother of such a great colony with millions of moving parts is no exception.
Can you believe that each and every single one of these Fire Nation workers here were
all born from an egg produced by my fine body?
All ants of the Fire Nation who have passed on, and who are to be born in our future,
were and will be created by me.
Amazing to think about right?
They all know who I am, but don't let them know, I don't actually KNOW all of them.
Now even if I'm no worker, I, the queen mother, work, too.
Laying eggs is no easy job.
I can produce hundreds of eggs a day, if food supply is efficient.
My cohort must constantly feed me and take my eggs away as I lay them.
I am essentially an ant-making factory.
This here is my grand kingdom, the Selva de Fuego.
Isn't it pretty?
Don't touch anything or my daughters will kill you.
It's quite a cozy estate, and before you ask, I won't ever tell you where my quarters are
in these lands because, well, that would compromise Fire Nation security.
I don't ever come to the surface, but I am fully aware of everything that goes on above
ground.
My entire army is connected by way of pheromone messages.
Pheromones are like our version of human social media, biochemicals traveling through our
tunnels like wifi.
So, I know when there is food above ground, what kind of food, and if it's alive and struggling
and requires extra ant force to subdue.
I always wait in anticipation for one of my daughters to give me that tasty pre-digested
shot of delicious goodies they consume at the surface and carry back to those of us
working inside the nest.
I love the taste of the Symbiont's latest cockroach stock.
Mmmm...
Check out my daughter and son alates, this year's princesses and princes of the Fire
Nation.
I look at them with such love.
I doubt they have any idea what's up ahead for them.
I know I didn't.
I remember the day like it was yesterday.
This right here was my birth home.
Deep within its chambers, my older sisters cared for me and raised me to adulthood.
That is me.
I was quite the catch wasn't I?
I never had to do any work, but I knew I was born for a task that was much greater than
any of that of my worker sisters.
From the day I was born, I had learned about the great nuptial flight.
Word had it that it was a life-changing event.
In the days leading up to Nuptial Flight, my sister alates and I would come to the surface,
breathe the fresh air, play in the light, and fantasize about what flights would be
like, but our worker sisters would hastily rush us back into the nest.
We all knew we weren't to fly off until the big day.
Before we knew it.
The big day had come.
Hundreds or us princess and princes assembled at the various entrances of our great nest.
The Nuptial Flight pheromone from our nest and that of all fire ant nests in the land
filled the air, having been carried over great distances by the winds.
Our entire species had announced that Nuptial Flight was officially in progress.
It was time for us to fulfill our purpose.
Without ever having flown once, my brother and sister alates flapped our wings and took
to the air.
In a massive cloud of fire ant princes and princesses, we flew to the fire ant nuptial
flight clouds of neighbouring fire ant colonies.
It was an exhilarating moment for me, and well, I found love in the sky, many times
that day, but let's skip the details.
Sadly, many of my brothers and sisters were killed by great beasts during Nuptial Flight.
Birds, dragonflies, spiders.
I have no idea how I managed to survive the monster feast, but all I knew was that I had
to do this.
At the end of Nuptial Flight, an inexplicable shift happened.
First, all my brothers and lovers died in incredible masses.
Their life purpose had been fulfilled.
And as for me, I immediately noticed a change in my body.
I suddenly couldn't fly anymore.
My wings wouldn't flap and in fact, they were quite itchy and I felt the urge to literally
break them off.
Also, I suddenly became quite photophobic.
The sun's rays no longer delighted me.
Like a vampire, I suddenly was compelled to seek darkness.
I walked great distances, alone.
None of my sisters were in sight.
After living with millions of ants my entire life, it was strange to suddenly be alone,
but I knew this was all part of my purpose.
Before I could find a suitable hole in the ground to hide, all I remember was being scooped
up into a glass capsule and placed in the dark.
It was different, but I liked it and it was there that I gave birth to my very first set
of eggs.
I remember feeling a love I've never ever felt before.
I cared for those eggs with my entire being.
When my eggs hatched my body began to produce a nutritious soup which I fed to my baby larvae
for 30 days.
During that entire time, I never ate once.
All that mattered to me was raising my first round of babies.
When the young had matured to full grown ants, they went on to take care of me and all my
future young, and well, here we are now, almost three years later.
I'm a single windowed mother of millions.
We're not like the termites, whose nuptial flights lead to monogamous marriages where
the males become kings to reign with their queens.
We ants, are much more hardcore!
Now you may be asking how long I'll live to keep laying eggs.
Well, word has it, I'll be alive for another 27 yrs, and well, nature has equipped with
an internal sperm-bank called a spermatheca, which keeps the sperm of all my lovers from
my Nuptial Flight three years ago alive and functional.
If you ask me, if I'm happy, I would answer absolutely yes.
I have all I need here, and I love this new setup because our excrement collecting in
our bathrooms now get eaten up by all these plants, which give us great cover and freshen
our air.
And check out our gorgeous water garden and aqua pets.
We now drink from the freshest water ever.
The Symbiont has even added a few more plants to keep the waters even cleaner and offer
us much more running room.
I've asked for the construction of a waterfall, but we'll see what our Symbiont comes up with.
I understand that there are other neighbouring ant kingdoms around us, but if I do say so
myself, none of them are as powerful and interesting as us.
I hear some of the other Kingdoms have more than one queen.
Haha!
I could never deal with that, and don't need to.
I am all the Fire Nation needs for as long as we live.
When I die, all of the Fire Nation shall die.
We go down together, and that's the way of our species.
And so, a message to all Mothers out there, keep on building your army in love.
Even though these workers never knew what it took for them to be here, I know inside
they appreciate me until their dying day.
It's Queen Mother Ant Love forever.
Oh yes, and about that secret.
I bet you think "AC" in AC Family stands for AntsCanada, right?
Well, I hate to break it to you.
It doesn't.
It actually stands for Ant Colony, because each of you watching are like members of a
powerful army, getting bigger and stronger with every new AC Family member joining, possessing
enormous power as you invade the Youtube ecosystem.
With immense power of numbers and burning ant love, you trend these videos every week
in various countries around the world.
It's ant supercolony domination at its finest... and guess who your queen is.
Just a hint.
It's not the Symbiont.
Leave your message to me in the comments so I can get to know you better, because as mentioned,
I don't know all of you.
Happy Mother's Day, my children.
AC Family, did you enjoy this video?
Queen Solis is pretty awesome right?
I'm thrilled Her Royal Highness agreed to narrate today's Mother's Day episode, and
well, she revealed a few things today that might interest you, including some big plans
I have coming up for the Selva De Fuego, so be sure to hit that SUBSCRIBE button and BELL
ICON so you don't miss out on this on going ant story, and hit the LIKE button every single
time, including now.
AC Inner Colony, I have left a hidden cookie for you here, if you would just like to check
out some quick updates on all the other ant colonies in our Ant Room.
Before we continue with the AC Question of the Week, I would like to quickly plug my
daily vlogging channel, daily vlogs of my travels around the world, which often includes
a lot of nature stuff.
And now it's time for the AC Question of the Week, last week we asked:
What is our crayfish's duty in the Spring Pool of our
Golden Empire?
Congratulations to David Ahn who correctly answered:
The crayfish removes drowned ant carcasses to keep the water clean.
Congratulations, David Ahn, you just won a free e-book handbook from our shop!
In this week's AC Question of the Week, we ask:
What bodily changes did the queen experience after mating?
Leave your answer in the comments section and you could also win a free e-book handbook
from our shop!
Hope you can subscribe to the channel as we upload every Saturday at 8AM EST.
Please remember to LIKE, COMMENT, SHARE, & SUBSCRIBE if you enjoyed this video to help us keep
making more.
It's ant love forever!