Greetings AC Family,
In this week’s video on the AC channel, we watch as the Fire Nation, our Red Tropical Fire ant colony, moves into the ‘Fire Palace’, a bin full of soil. This is the largest addition to their setup they have ever received. Watch the ants move in, dig tunnels, and move massive amounts of soil around.
Enjoy the video!
Fire Ants Build Giant Ant Hills in a Bin
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OH. MY. GOODNESS.
AC Family,
We’ve reached the tipping point.
The Fire Nation, our epic Tropical Fire Ant colony, is about to explode out of the setup!
Look at how many ants there are!
Wow! Our beloved queen, who hides here protected by her super-aggressive warriors, has certainly been busy.
So, it is finally time to reveal what I had planned for our bins that you saw in a previous video.
We are giving the Fire Nation their very own sand castle grounds.
Welcome, everyone, to the Fire Palace!
For the very first time today, we are going to watch as our HUGE fire ant colony is given the most surface, the most subterranean area, and greatest of all, the most digging medium they’ve ever had to construct the biggest, most amazing castle they’ve ever built.
In this episode, we will witness the sheer and mind-blowing power and ingenuity of nature’s most prolific engineers and architects.
You won’t want to miss all of the epic ant action ahead, so keep watching until the very end to see what they end up making.
AC Family, let’s sit back and marvel as the Fire Nation, our biggest ant colony on this channel, shows us their true potential as Ant-Hill builders, in this episode of The AntsCanada Ant Channel!
whispering Please subscribe to my channel and hit the bell icon, this is the amazing world of ants, enjoy!
WELCOME, to the AC Ant Room.
It may seem calm and quiet on the surface, but if we take a closer look at our ant farm setup here, we’ll discover that a great nation is bustling with life, active, and non-stop on the move.
So we’ve come to the point where the Fire Nation can no longer be contained in their current setup.
Look at how many ants there are.
Here’s Solenopsis Hill, just covered with ants.
Inside, they congregate in massive numbers, as usual.
Here we have Fire Ant Mountain, also jam-packed with ants!
As busy as these lands are, what I find impressive are the highlands!
Let’s move up this tube and into the Hydrocombs.
Whoa! Look at how they’ve changed these territories!
Remember how clean these lands used to be?
Well, they’ve moved soil in from neighboring territories and made it cozier for them!
It is so busy here!
Look at how they’ve completely moved soil into the tubes!
And here, they’ve created a grand arch made of bits of cotton they have pulled from the test tube setups.
How interesting.
It comes to show you that the Fire Nation will NOT have us humans decorate their space!
They’re determined to have the final say in the planning of their ant country’s design.
Moving along to the Fire Jungle…
As you can see, they’ve continued to fashion their amazing anthills and tunnels into the soil.
And look at how they’ve stuck clumps of soil to the walls! So neat!
Moving along to the neighboring Tropic of Pyro, we have even more cool anthill work!
You know, what I truly find amazing is that these anthills are changing every day!
Every time I look into these soil nests, they look different—with new holes, holes moved to new places, new hills…
The shape and topography of the surface is always changing!
The reason for this is that the ants constantly construct these soil homes in such a way that they provide the utmost perfect internal conditions.
Their soil nests are modular on purpose, constantly changing with the varying moisture levels of the soil.
Isn’t that amazing?
Could you imagine if your home could constantly change like this, in response to weather, in such a way that it creates the perfect internal home environment?
Now, speaking of internal home environments…
If you think all of this above the ground looks impressive, let’s go beneath the soil and see what they’ve done!
Beneath the Tropic of Pyro, we have subterranean tunnels—and my, does it look moist down there!
In the basement of the Fire Jungle, we have brood rooms.
…and beneath the Hydrocombs?
Wow! Look at all of that brood! It looks like these are the main pupae chambers!
What you’re looking at here is the future workers of the Fire Nation!
You’ll notice that some of the pupae are an orange color. These pupae are ones that are ready to eclose, meaning the fully developed adult ants are just about to emerge from them.
This pupal stage lasts about a week and, once adult workers, they live for about a month more before dying.
The lifespan of worker ants is quite short, and it’s the queen that lives for years and years.
Mind-blowing to think that every month or so, all the worker ants that you watch in these videos are a completely different generation of ants from the ants you may have watched in videos just a month before!
Every few weeks, this colony is replaced by a brand-new generation of workers as the ants live and naturally die out.
So it seems the soil nests have been quite beneficial for the Fire Nation, which is why today is the day we’re finally going to give them the opportunity to really express their natural instinct to dig and create their ant castles!
We, the AC Family, are going to welcome them to the Fire Palace!
This is truly going to be epic!
Alright, so what we’ve done here is filled the Rubbermaid bin with about 4/10ths of organic soil for them to dig into.
I didn’t want to add any more soil than this because the ants build the anthills upwards, and it’s amazing how they can achieve height for their ant nests!
I didn’t want them to be able to build their way out of this Rubbermaid bin!
It also concerned me that this bin didn’t have the upside-down area like in our AC Outworlds, in which we could apply our ant barrier.
So this time, I was going to make sure to add a huge layer of it, just to make sure our Fire Nation would not be able to get out and make a nation of our ant room here.
I also wanted to test this first one bin before giving the Fire Nation access to the second bin.
Applying this slippery barrier is super crucial!
Once dry, the ants will slip right off it, but I’ll have to be diligent at continually checking for weaknesses in this barrier.
And now, all was set! The Fire Palace was ready to be built!
It was time to move the Fire Nation into this new, massive territory!
Let’s do this, AC Family! Are you ready?
Okay, so my plan was to take this tube, extending from the Gemenetta Pass, which currently leads to the Antagome, and attach it to this tube leading into the Fire Palace.
The other end of the tube, from the Antagome, was going to be a dead end for now into this sugar test tube setup.
Here goes nothing!
Behold! The Fire Nation being released to the Fire Palace!
AC Family, let’s watch the exciting move!
Here we go. Disconnecting the tubes here and placing a cotton swab on that end while I deal with this end.
Attached!
Gotta make sure it’s screwed in properly!
And we’re clear!
Now attaching the other end of that test tube to this sugar test tube… Woops! I dropped it!
Alright, recovered!
The Fire Palace is officially alive!
Overnight, the ants had built a palace that no human could have achieved in an equal amount of time!
Look at how high the soil was moved!
Look at all of those tunnels!
The ants have now moved in, and I know they are truly loving their new Fire Palace because I caught them moving brood into these new nesting grounds!
I bet the queen is also already living here, and if she isn’t, I bet they’ll move her in quite soon!
It amazes me just how these ants went straight to work digging and customizing, and they did it in concert, executing this massive project instinctually and efficiently.
Ants are truly amazing architects, engineers, and construction workers!
And want to know something else cool?
Amazingly, two days later, check out the other territories…
Look at Solonopsis Hill! It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this little traffic here!
And peeking inside… Wow! Just a few members there at the back, but now mostly empty!
Take a look at Fire Ant Mountain… Deserted!
And remember the Hydrocombs with their super-packed subterranean pupae chambers?
All the pupae have been moved into the Fire Palace, and they just had a few more left to transfer.
The Fire Nation has officially moved the bulk of the colony into the Fire Palace.
This is okay, though, because it gives me an opportunity now to go in and give these other territories a good cleaning before they get large enough to move back in.
Another cool thing about the Fire Palace is that, because there is so much soil, organic waste can decompose easier, and the ants simply bury any rotting organic waste and not worry about it like they do in the wild.
It means that cleaning is much easier in a soil nest like this.
As is AC tradition, I’m going to give these ants a housewarming gift!
Some chicken!
I’m going to have to observe the Fire Palace here closely over the next few days to make sure all goes as planned.
If it does, I will surely be adding more soil nests like this in the future!
I currently don’t have a cover, but I will be making one soon.
I want there to be good ventilation so that humidity doesn’t weaken our baby powder barrier.
Let’s hope some house gecko doesn’t fall in here one night! It would surely be doomed!
Having the Outworld open and exposed like this poses some issues, however.
Nuptial fights could happen, so I will certainly need to create a cover of some kind to keep these alates from flying out!
Overall, though, these new territories are a marvel to behold and add a new dimension to our massive fire ant colony here.
I will continue to keep you guys updated on its progress.
I’m so happy we got to witness the magic of how these amazing creatures erect their giant soil structures in such a short time!
I feel like this nest extension was a success!
High-five, AC Family!
So a couple of weeks ago, we gave our Dark Knights a new extension to their territories…
…a forty-foot, two-story pathway to a satellite nest!
Today, we gave the Fire Nation this gigantic Fire Palace soil nest, which leaves us with this colony…
The Golden Empire, our yellow crazy ant colony, who is fighting an ongoing war against mites.
The good news is the Golden Empire is still alive.
The not-so-good news is the mites are still around, and according to some mite biologists that I spoke with, the mites are bad, and the Golden Empire must be moved out of the nest ASAP!
I can’t wait to show you what cool thing I have planned for them!
Next week… Haha!
Thank you, AC Family, for watching this video, and until next week… it’s ant love forever!
AC Family, was that cool or what?!
I love the Fire Nation so much, and love that you guys got to witness their sheer power and engineering potential today!
And, as usual, for you inner-colony members, I have placed a hidden cookie for you here: and for those of you who just want to see more extended play footage of the Fire Nation moving into the Fire Palace, along with footage of their extensive digging.
Do check it out!
Now it’s time for the AC Question of the Week for a free prize from our shop!
Last week, we asked: Name one method to help keep ants out of your home.
Congratulations to… Messor Brothers!, who correctly answered: Use vinegar when cleaning the floors, countertops, walls, etc. to get rid of ant pheromone trails.
We also accepted a variety of answers, including: placing open food in the fridge, adding a moat around food and pet food, and using a baby powder plus rubbing alcohol mix around the legs of tables.
Congratulations, Messor Brothers, you just won a free ant shirt from our shop!
In this week’s question of the week, we ask: What does the term “eclosing” mean?
Leave your answer in the comments section, and you could win a free eBook handbook from our shop!
Perfect for Northern Hemisphere nuptial flight season coming up in just a few weeks more!
Hope you can subscribe to the channel and join the AC Family because we upload a new mind-blowing ant video every single Saturday at 8 AM Eastern Standard Time.
Thanks so much for the support, AC Family, and until next week…
It’s ant love forever!