My fire ants are getting a new ant park and their reaction was pretty surprising! The Phoenix Empire, my new young but booming colony of red tropical fire ants (Solenopsis geminata) are now mature enough to get a brand new a space, a space larger than they’ve ever had before. Watch how the ants react to the new ant park, as well as to the special “ant picnic” I prepared for them. After the introduction, what I observed within the ant nest will truly blow your mind! Hope you enjoy this week’s video!
FIRE ANTS REACT TO THEIR NEW “ANT PARK”
The Phoenix Empire’s Grand Expansion!
Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Phoenix Empire—this six-week-old fire ant colony, destined to become a great fire ant kingdom of power and might!
The queen’s brood has been exploding in numbers, and the demand for food, resources, and space increases more and more with every new adult fire ant worker maturing to join the growing army.
But today, the ants are in for a special treat as we connect the colony to the biggest space they’ve ever seen—this brand-new Ant Park, complete with a delicious picnic waiting for them!
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The Grand Reveal of the Ant Park
Behold, the Phoenix Empire’s newest premium real estate: an Ant Park!
You’ll really get a kick out of their interesting reaction to the park and their picnic, as well as something truly incredible I filmed back at the nest afterward. So keep watching until the end!
This grand Ant Park will officially be the biggest space the Phoenix Empire has ever accessed.
So far, the colony has only known the space of their founding test tube, and just last week, their small feeding chamber and water test tube.
They don’t know it yet, but their fire ant territory is about to get a whole lot larger!
Now, I created the park using a simple kitchenware container, decorated with sand, stones, sticks, and dry moss.
I had to decorate minimally and keep everything dry so that the ants wouldn’t try to move in when we connect them—and just so you know, something really funny is coming up about that!
But now, AC Family, I need your help!
What should we name this Ant Park?
Please take the time to vote here on an official park name. I trust you’ll make it a good one!
Thank you, AC Council, for your input!
A Peek Inside the Nest
Now, before we officially open this Ant Park for business, let’s have a look inside the Phoenix Empire’s nest, shall we?
Behold the queen, whom we’ve named the Ember Empress, sitting majestically over her massive bed of brood.
We can see eggs, young larvae, and some pupae.
Check out that young, light-colored worker lovingly licking the larvae with her antibiotic saliva to keep them all free of mold and germs.
Just adorable!
But incredibly, this is only one section of the colony’s brood pile!
Here’s another section with pupae and pupating larvae… and yet another section with intermediate and mature larvae.
This is clearly one massive brood pile!
And if you compare the size of the queen’s gaster now to her gaster size just two weeks ago, you’ll see that a ton more eggs are about to be born soon!
The Phoenix Empire is doing so well!
The Need for Expansion
But here’s the thing—with more and more mouths to feed, they’ve not only had to eat a lot, but of course, they’ve also been generating a lot of waste.
Within the colony’s test tube portal, the garbage pile and toilet area have been getting quite full.
In nature, soil creatures and the elements would clean this up, but in this case, the ants depend on me.
Let’s clean up their mess!
Wiping their garbage pile up—ooh, look at that ant midden!
Kinda looks like earwax!
Now to clean up their toilet area.
Yummy! Ant feces.
Cleaning up after the ants made me realize that it was time for them to have a new, larger space, so that the area where they eat would not have to be the same area where they poop and dump their garbage.
Plus, I felt the fire ants were ready for a larger space—one where they could get out and satisfy their innate need to forage.
This new Ant Park would offer the perfect solution and contribute to the Phoenix Empire’s overall well-being.
The Big Moment: Connecting the Ant Park!
It’s time to give the colony their new park!
Ooooh, how exciting! Let’s do this!
Here was the tube that would serve as a bridge to the park, connecting to the test tube portal.
I’ve prepared a freshly chopped-up mealworm on a bed of leaves, so they could enjoy a picnic in their new park.
The colony was already sending out foragers into the test tube portal, so I knew they were hungry!
I placed the delicious meal inside.
And now, to connect the Ant Park tube to the test tube portal!
Here we go!
Carefully removing the plug and inserting the tube inside…
And voila!
Ant Park connected.
Hope you like your new park, Phoenix Empire!
The Ants’ First Steps Into the Park
It wasn’t long before some brave ants began to wander into the tube, ever curiously, and stepped onto the uncharted grounds of their new Ant Park.
And that’s when joy took over their bodies!
The ants immediately set off to explore—in a rush, they wandered every corner of the Ant Park they could!
They inspected the sands, climbed the branches and moss, scaled the walls, crawled around the rocks, and meticulously mapped out this new, vast land of epic proportions!
Never had they explored such an open space!
What a discovery!
After a bit of exploring, some ants ran back through the tube, filling the area with pheromones along the way to signal for other colony members to come check out the newly discovered lands.
One ant didn’t even bother going all the way back to the nest—it had to get back to the Ant Park ASAP!
The colony back in the test tube would eventually smell its “COME HITHER” pheromones!
And indeed, it was clear that inside the nest, news had reached the colony of the Ant Park, and more workers set off to investigate the rumors of the new exciting lands just beyond!
I watched as more and more workers emerged and frolicked about.
More to Come!
AC Family, our Phoenix Empire is doing so well, wouldn’t you say?
So much is in store ahead!
If you haven’t yet, SMASH that SUBSCRIBE button and BELL ICON now and hit ALL so you get notified at every upload, because I believe notifications seem to be broken, but the YouTube support team is on it!
Also, don’t forget to hit the LIKE button every single time, including now.
It would really mean a lot to me.
Thank you, guys!
AC Inner Colony Exclusive!
AC Inner Colony, I have left a hidden cookie for you here if you would like to watch extended play footage of the Phoenix Empire exploring their new Ant Park, as well as a certain creature that mysteriously infiltrated the park!
See if you can spot it!
AC Question of the Week!
Last week, we asked:
What do you look forward to the most in the Phoenix Empire’s future?
Congratulations to Bruce Hendershott, who answered:
“I’m most looking forward to the emergence of the supermajors.”
Congratulations, Bruce! You just won a free Ultimate Ant Keeping Handbook from our shop!
This week’s AC Question of the Week:
Why did the Ant Park need to be minimally decorated and kept dry?
Leave your answer in the comments section, and you could also win a free e-book handbook from our shop!
It’s Ant Love Forever! 🐜❤️
The Phoenix Empire’s Next Steps
AC Family, after today’s epic events, it was incredibly satisfying to see the ants doing what they are designed to do naturally.
In the days that followed, the colony continued to travel back and forth between their Ant Park and the nest in search of food.
I’ll be placing their meat in here from now on.
As an additional gift, I prepared a test tube full of brown sugar water and attached it to their test tube portal, so our workers could drink it at any time and acquire the energy needed to power their great work!
I think we did good, guys.
The Phoenix Empire would all rest with full bellies for another week.
Ant-Keeping Milestone
I truly appreciate that a lot of you seem to enjoy following the evolution and progress of this fire ant colony.
They are well on their way to success now!
I believe they’ve surpassed the hardest part of laying down the foundation of a fully functioning ant colony.
Not every ant colony survives this initial founding stage, but thankfully, our Phoenix Empire is one of the lucky ones!
I expect that in just a few more weeks, the Phoenix Empire will have hundreds or even thousands of workers.
They’ll soon start to grow large enough to live with allies like springtails and isopods, which will help eat up their waste.
They will also become big enough to eventually move into a formicarium and outworlds, ferocious enough to consume larger prey, and soon explode in numbers so much that they’ll need to be housed in a full-blown terrarium!
But I’m in no rush, because for now, I’m just treasuring all these intimate moments with the Phoenix Empire, particularly with the Ember Empress.
A Lesson From The Fire Nation
One thing I noticed while keeping their predecessors, the Fire Nation, was that the bigger the colony got, the less and less I saw the queen.
And once they finally moved into a terrarium, I never saw her again—even to the day she died privately in the darkness of her nest.
So I’ve resolved to enjoy these precious moments with our Phoenix Empire queen, while we still can.
And through it all, I will continue filming the Phoenix Empire’s epic journey to becoming the greatest ant colony of the Antiverse.
From the bottom of my heart, guys, thank you for watching and supporting the ants!
It’s Ant Love Forever! 🐜❤️
AC Family, our Phoenix Empire is doing so well, wouldn’t you say?
So much is in store ahead!
If you haven’t yet, SMASH that SUBSCRIBE button and BELL ICON now and hit ALL so you get notified with every upload, because I believe notifications seem to be broken, but the YouTube support team is on it!
Also, don’t forget to hit the LIKE button every single time, including now.
It would really mean a lot to me.
Thank you, guys!
AC Inner Colony Exclusive!
AC Inner Colony, I have left a hidden cookie for you here if you would like to watch extended play footage of the Phoenix Empire exploring their new Ant Park, as well as a certain creature that mysteriously infiltrated the park!
See if you can spot it!
10th Anniversary Sale Announcement!
Just a quick announcement—if you’ve ever wanted to get into ant-keeping, we’re having our 10th Year Anniversary Sale at AntsCanada.com!
Just use the coupon code “antloveforever” to get 10% off all AC ant farms and equipment at the store!
Thanks so much for the ten years of support, guys!
AC Question of the Week!
Last week, we asked:
What do you look forward to the most in the Phoenix Empire’s future?
Congratulations to Bruce Hendershott, who correctly answered:
“I’m most looking forward to the emergence of the supermajors.”
Congratulations, Bruce! You just won a free Ultimate Ant Keeping Handbook from our shop!
This Week’s AC Question of the Week
This week, we ask:
Why did the Ant Park need to be minimally decorated and kept dry?
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 our channel as we upload every Saturday at 8 AM 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! 🐜❤️