Greetings Ant Lovers,

This week’s video is sweet! We all know that Fire ants, crazy ants, and so many other ant species go crazy for sugars! Check out this week’s new video on ants and their love for sugary foods! They will even solve a maze with ease and raise ant cows to get a taste of sugars! Thank you, as well, for helping us name our red tropical fire ant colony: THE FIRE NATION lives on!

You can watch our new video here.

Also a BIG THANK YOU to all our new subscribers to the channel for the support! Welcome to the family!

It’s Ant Love Forever!

Ants Do Crazy Things For Sugar (feat. Fire Ants & Crazy Ants) | Ant Sugars Tutorial

Welcome everyone to the Fire Nation.

Let’s give some caramel chocolate to Fire Nation here. How was this colony named Fire Nation?

Well, it’s thanks to you guys who voted in a previous poll that was set up in one of my past videos. So, Fire Nation it is!

Now, these red tropical fire ants of Fire Nation love sweets.

Actually, this is the very first time these ants have ever had a taste of chocolate. Look at how excited they are!

The ants immediately identify that a large tasty treat has fallen from the skies, and the message spreads fast throughout the entire colony.

Excited sisters come rushing out of the entrances of the nearby nest to have a taste of this delicious treat that awaits them.

Now, these ants don’t have vocal cords. So the only way they communicate is through pheromones, and right now you better believe that the food pheromones are all over the place.

Some sisters rush to nearby satellite nests to deliver the news.

These ants have no idea what this food is, but they do know that it tastes great.

Now, you want to hear something really cool?

Ants have two stomachs.

They have their own stomach, and they have a social stomach.

When they eat food on location like this, they fill up their social stomach.

The social stomach is kind of like a personal lunch box. Through a process called trophallaxis, the ants transfer this food mouth to mouth.

This means the bulk of the colony can remain inside the nest and they don’t have to venture out into the world outside, where there can be many dangers.

Most of the colony remains inside the nest, waiting for members who have ventured outside of the nest to return so they can eat the food.

Upon return to the nest, the ants bring back the food stored in their social stomachs.

This means that not a single member of the colony goes hungry, and that includes all of the young.

Isn’t that amazing? These ants have mastered food distribution.

And you want to hear something else that’s amazing in the ant world? Only the oldest ants are the ones that leave the nest.

The senior citizens are the ones that venture out into the world outside.

They subject themselves to dangers along the way, and it’s their responsibility to bring back food to the nest.

Fire Nation will be a very happy colony because in just a few hours each one of these ants and their young will have had a taste of our delicious caramel chocolate.

Our ants in the Fire Nation can rest assured that they’ll be able to survive another week.

All thanks to our giant delectable gift that fell from the heavens.

Meanwhile, in a colony nearby, black crazy ants don’t have it as easy.

They need to solve this maze in order to get to this little drop of corn syrup.

Watch them go, guys!

Well, that didn’t take very long.

Now, watch this ant that filled its social stomach and heads back to the nest. On its way back, it leaves a pheromone trail, indicating that at the end of this pheromone trail lies a tasty treat.

Look at all these crazy ants heading to the drop now.

You’ll notice that they don’t even check out the other areas of the maze. They know exactly where the food is.

It isn’t long before word spreads to the entire colony back at the nest that there’s a drop of sweets.

Looking into the nest.

Isn’t it cool, guys? Look at them filling up their social stomachs.

Now, some of you guys might be asking, “All right, well, what about ants in the wild that might not be near human settlement? Where do the ants get their sweets?” Well, on a recent trip to the Pacific Island known as Guam, I was able to film some ants that get their sugars from ant cows.

Oh my God. Look what I just found!

Solenopsis farming some aphids.

Okay, I’m going to try to do this carefully because they’re probably going to try to defend their ant cows from my finger.

But look, they’re totally farming some aphids there. That’s so great!

For those of you who aren’t aware, “ant cows” is defined as many species of ants tending aphids or some other kind of plant insects, and these plant insects produce honeydew.

Honeydew is a sweet secretion that they excrete, and the ants retrieve food from the aphids. So it’s kind of like how humans have cows and we milk cows for milk.

These ants milk these aphids for honeydew.

It’s a great symbiotic relationship because the ants defend and care for the aphids.

Really neat!!

Another place ants can get their sugars is from nectar from flowers, and in the process, they pollinate the flowers.

All right, we got ginger, I believe, and I see some ants in there.

If you look closely in there, you can also see some other insects buzzing about. I believe they’re pollinating this ginger plant.

Tutorial time! All right, guys!! Why do ants love sweets so much?

It’s not only for anthony protein, which they get from insects or decaying meat, but ants also need carbohydrates in the form of sugars, like this chocolate.

However, most ants will consume sugars in the form of sugar water, honey water, or hummingbird nectar.

You can offer this in a test tube setup or in a simple feeder by placing it in a container and poking pinholes.

You can also try offering fresh fruit to ants.

Colonies need sugars because it offers the colony ATP, which is energy.

Workers work really hard around the clock, and so they need this energy the most.

Sugary foods also offer the colony a broad array of vital nutrients.

So try to offer your ants different kinds of sugars, and I promise you your ant colony will flourish.

A lot of times people often write to us asking why their colony isn’t doing so well, and everything seems to be right.

They don’t offer enough sugars, and usually, it’s enough to solve the problem.

Sugars and carbohydrates are just as important as protein in an ant’s diet.

So please be sure to offer your ants something sweet to get them going.

Thanks so much for watching our video.

Take care. See you next week. It’s ant love forever.

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I cannot believe how many people out there have ant love. I absolutely love you guys!

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We’ve got a lot of great ant videos coming up!

I find ants are the most amazing creatures on this planet, and I look forward to you guys discovering just how amazing they are.

They bring insights to ourselves and to the world around us. It’s ant love forever, guys. See you next week!

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