Fire ants vs. Cockroaches: This week, I decided to construct a self-feeding system that allowed a colony of young cockroaches to safely survive and breed, while also providing my pet fire ant colony (the Phoenix Empire) with a perpetuating food source. Come check out the Shelfordella Temple Grounds, the newest addition to the Phoenix Empire’s ant farm setup, The City of Ashes, and watch what happens when I put this new self-feeding system to work. In the end, I ask you to vote on whether or not Shelfordella should remain a permanent installment to the City of Ashes. Hope you enjoy this week’s episode.

FIRE ANTS vs. COCKROACHES | Is this ethical?

OMG, guys!

I’m still recovering from what I’ve filmed this week.

It all just got so real, so fast!!

OK, so I normally pre-kill my feeder insects when feeding my pet ants because I just feel it lessens the suffering of the feeder insects.

But in some cases, I do feed live prey to my pets—for instance, when it’s necessary for the animals’ food to be alive and moving in order for them to actually perceive them. Or, as I’ve done in the past, when the prey can actually live out normal lives and be hunted by the predator, which is what happens in nature.

So, this week, I attempted to create a neat self-feeding, ethical system, which allowed the prey creatures—a colony of roaches—to live, feed, and breed normally while also allowing them to be gradually picked off and hunted by my pet fire ant colony. I knew they needed to satisfy their hunting urges for living prey.

And so, AC Family, just a warning—this episode gets intense, raw, and gruesome, as we witness the instinctive hunting faculties of fire ants at work in an epic roach hunt!

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Welcome to the AC Family. Enjoy!

So, if you like cockroaches like me, this video will be pretty heart-wrenching. But if you’re part of the majority of the world that hates roaches and would love to see a roach bloodbath, then this video is for you!

But guys, keep watching until the end because I’ll need your opinions on whether or not you think this setup I’m proposing in this video is truly an ethical option and an effective one for the overall well-being of our ants because I’m currently… torn.

You’ll see exactly what I mean in a bit.

So if you’re new, this here is The City of Ashes, our ever-growing fire ant farm metropolis.

Within it lives the Phoenix Empire, a young fire ant colony we watched grow from just a single queen fire ant.

But I need to show you this part of town—Hell’s Kitchen, where the fire ants get their food.

Now, you guys named this feeding outworld “Hell’s Kitchen”, and, well, despite it originally starting out as a gorgeous paradise, it has truly been transformed into a fire ant hell.

The fire ants completely carpet the remodeled and re-landscaped terrain, and watching them dance upon the ground and carcasses from past meals like this intimidates me greatly.

Look at them!

Such a scary sight!

Each of these ants is fully equipped with stingers that can immediately paralyze any creature their size and cause an intense, hot pain for an unsuspecting human hand like mine!

No way am I sticking my hand in here—I’ve been there, done that!

So, you might be wondering what this is.

Well, it’s some sweet jelly I placed into Hell’s Kitchen as a diversion so I could lure the fire ants out of their sugar test tube, which they had completely finished and needed to be replaced.

After I did, the fire ants came rushing in like crazy to drink from their new sugar source.

Food is basically their #1 priority, all day, every day… always!

But let me ask you something.

If you were a small insect and were dropped into Hell’s Kitchen here, where would you hide?

Let’s say you were quick on your feet—would you say it would be possible to survive, eat, breed, and live normally here despite the fire ants roaming the lands?

This is what I asked myself as I thought of how I could possibly allow my fire ants to hunt as they would in the wild while still giving the prey creatures a surviving chance to live normally.

I’m sure you guys thought what I was thinking: Not possible, right?!

Well, that’s exactly why I invented the City of Ashes’ newest installation, which I’m going to show you now.

AC Family, behold The Shelfordella Temple Grounds—a zen garden of soft, coco-fibrous pastures, leaf litter to play in, and the highlight: a towering temple at its center, perfect for relaxation and peace if you were—you guessed it—a cockroach.

A colony of cockroach children will be moving in here, and I’ve got a peace offering of fruit, vegetables, and fish food waiting for them to eat.

I’ll get more into how Shelfordella works, but first, let’s move in our cockroach children now.

They came to us on an egg carton, delivered to me by a gracious someone in my city who was actually able to deliver them to me despite my city’s strict lockdown.

There’s quite a lot of them, so I’ll just place them all in, and then I’ll carefully shake them off each egg carton piece.

And there we go!

Masses of cockroach children were now within the temple grounds.

There were a lot of them!

As soon as they were placed onto the grounds, they all kissed the ground, most likely due to the moisture they were drinking from the coco fiber.

These poor roach children must be so thirsty.

So, these roaches are hatchling Turkestan roaches, scientifically known as Blatta lateralis or Shelfordella lateralis in some classifications—hence their temple name.

Speaking of which—look, guys!

The children have discovered the temple and are already enjoying its cool, shadowy promises of protection.

I loved watching them enter and exit the temple openings and even enjoy the upper floors as they peeked happily outside the little windows.

Some roaches were also having bites from our peace offering.

Now, before we go on, guys—what should we name this new colony of roaches?

Leave your name suggestions in the comments, and I’ll choose my top five favorites for us to vote on in a future video!

Overall, I could tell the roaches were indeed enjoying the lands and treating it like a safe haven, where they could live, eat, play, and go about their happy lives as normal. That was my goal because what I’m about to show you next is how Shelfordella fits into the City of Ashes.

Shelfordella, like Hell’s Kitchen, is made from an AC Outworld from AntsCanada.com. It has two unsuspecting holes, which are currently plugged, but my plan is for both holes to be connected to tubes that run up to another AC Outworld, situated on top of Hell’s Kitchen.

So, my idea is that some of the roaches would wander into the tubes, climb up, and fall into Hell’s Kitchen. Because of the barrier above Hell’s Kitchen, the fire ants cannot access these upper holes and enter the roach safe haven that is Shelfordella.

The roaches aren’t very good at climbing smooth surfaces, so once they get to these holes, they’ll easily fall into Hell’s Kitchen, where the Phoenix Empire could then hunt them down.

I wasn’t sure if this would work, but it was now time to try!

Unplugging the first hole and connecting the tube…

And doing the same with the second hole…

Done!

AC Family, it was time to watch, but I wasn’t prepared for the scene I was about to see!

The roaches were shy to enter the tube at first, but soon, one bold roach decided to rush up the tube.

My heart began to race.

Emerging from the other end, it looked over the edge.

I held my breath!

Soon, it slipped and was hanging on the edge.

Ahhh!

I wasn’t sure I wanted to watch anymore but decided to keep filming…

Oh!

In it went!

Where was it?

There!

I caught it running across some moss, evading the surrounding fire ants.

The suspense killed me as I watched it hide among some moss and then dart away once it was discovered.

It raced all around Hell’s Kitchen, zigzagging its way through the masses of fire ants that crawled all around it.

I was quite surprised to see how quick it was on its feet as it effectively avoided running into the surrounding fire ants, who were by now aware of the roach’s presence.

There were times it came so close to being captured but always seemed to escape.

I found the roach seemed safest around the edges.

For a moment, I began to wonder if the fire ants would ever end up catching the roach.

Maybe these roaches were just way too fast for the fire ants.

There were even moments when it could rest to clean itself until it was discovered again—at which point it would run away.

It was kinda like catching a fly.

It was much too fast and could even jump out of sight!

I felt the fire ants kinda didn’t stand a chance against the roach’s speed…

That was until more roach children began to come through the tubes.

Someone must have convinced a gang of roaches to come wandering into the tubes because they were coming in groups now.

Little by little, they all began to fall in.

Some were lucky and decided to crawl back the other way, but most had fallen into Hell’s Kitchen.

Looking into Hell’s Kitchen, I saw that several of the roaches had been caught and were now being feasted upon by the ants.

Once the ants had seized a roach, there was simply no chance of survival, as one sting would be enough to neuro-paralyze the roach.

It was a little disturbing to see, more so as I caught roaches running for their lives around the lands, with fire ants—no pun intended—hot on their tails.

Many roaches showed enormous agility at avoiding the fire ants.

But I knew it was only a matter of time before they would be caught and killed on the spot.

The whole Phoenix Empire had been notified by now of the roaches that seemed to be raining from the skies, and I could see droves of ants dispatched from the Mothernest to join the hunt.

As hard as it all was to watch, the real intensity was just about to begin…

As more and more roaches made their way up the tubes and fell in large groups into Hell’s Kitchen below.

I watched in horror as roaches and ants could be seen racing everywhere in a massive life-and-death game of tag…

And the fire ants were it!

It seemed that some roaches had nowhere to go, as fire ants turned up at every corner!

I sat wide-eyed and humbled as the fire ants masterfully caught roaches and killed them with a single sting.

Nature is truly metal.

It took seconds for a sting to immobilize the roaches.

As more and more roaches fell in, the fire ants got more and more ferocious, picking off every roach they could catch!

The sight was a total roach bloodbath!

Tons of roaches had been killed now, and once they were dead, they were each carried away, taken through the tubes, and back to the nest one by one for further consumption.

The roaches that had it the worst were the ones who had the misfortune of falling into the jelly, as the fire ants had a much easier time seizing them to deliver the lethal stings, after which they could carry them into the depths of their nest.

As more and more roach babies continued to fall in, I began to notice that Hell’s Kitchen had truly turned into a Hell for roaches.

It was hard to stomach, but I knew—and kept having to remind myself—that this was a natural process, and one that would feed and nourish our beloved Phoenix Empire, whose food demands were growing by the day.

The next day, the roaches within Shelfordella were all sleeping inside the temple.

I’m sure there were tons of roaches in there.

It didn’t seem like the roaches were coming through the tube as much anymore.

Peeking into the nest, I couldn’t see any roaches stashed away anywhere, but two things surprised me.

One, it seemed to me the amount and size of the brood had noticeably increased overnight!

Well, that was quick!

Also, the fire ants had built their nest upward, almost to the top of the Fire Fortress.

I bet they were keeping all those dead roaches somewhere in there—if they hadn’t all been eaten by now!

So guys, what do you think of this setup?

First off, do you think this system of feeding is sustainable?

I know these roaches breed easily, and if they continue to breed in here, perhaps we have a solution for a self-feeding system, where the roaches could live out normal lives within Shelfordella, while also giving our fire ants a chance to hunt for food.

Shelfordella also makes a good gut-loading chamber for the roaches, so they’re full of nutrients before being fed to the fire ants.

But my bigger question is: Do you feel this Shelfordella installment is ethical?

Is this the best way we can feed the ants roaches where both parties can benefit—i.e., the fire ants get to hunt, and the roaches generally get to live out normal lives when not traveling through the tubes of death?

I’m not so sure at the moment.

So AC Family, this is where I need your help.

Please take a quick moment to leave your VOTE here to let me know if you think Shelfordella should remain a permanent installment within the City of Ashes, or if this should just be a one-time thing that was good enrichment for the Phoenix Empire for now but needs to be removed because it either isn’t sustainable, beneficial, and/or ethical.

Thank you, AC Council, for your input!

If you guys end up liking the self-feeding concept of Shelfordella, and it proves to be effective for our Phoenix Empire, perhaps I can try something similar to feed our colony of Sapphire Tarantulas.

Anyway, whether we decide to keep Shelfordella or not, one thing’s for sure: as we’ve seen on this channel before, nature isn’t always pretty, pristine, and beautiful.

Sometimes, it’s ugly, chaotic, and scary.

Would you guys agree with this?

Or maybe that contrast of what feels good and what feels bad when we’re watching nature unfold before us is just us not appreciating nature for what it really is.

Some might argue that in nature, there is no good nor bad—life, death, and everything in between—it’s all just intrinsically good.

I mean, yes, some baby roaches were killed, but in doing so, the fire ants were able to put their natural hunting faculties to work and nourish their growing colony in a way that nature designed for them.

When I look at it this way, I somehow can look beyond my human lens, often clouded by human emotion bias, and more greatly appreciate that the natural world is perfect, balanced, fair, and always flowing in the direction of the greater good of all.

Thank you guys for watching and supporting the ants!

It’s ant love forever!

AC Question of the Week!

AC Family, did you enjoy today’s episode?

Is it bad that I feel guilty, or is Shelfordella an effective way for both feeder roaches and ants to benefit in the long run?

Let me know—I’ll definitely value your feedback!

So much more is ahead for the Phoenix Empire and other creatures of the Ant Room, so if you haven’t yet, do SMASH that SUBSCRIBE button and BELL ICON now and hit ALL so you get notified at every upload.

Also, don’t forget to hit the LIKE button every single time, including now!

It would really mean a lot to me, guys.

Thank you!

AC Inner Colony, I’ve left a hidden cookie for you here!

If you’d like to watch extended play, uncut footage of the Phoenix Empire roach hunt, it’s intense stuff!

And guys, did you know that 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!

AC Question of the Week!

Last week, we asked:

What are supermajors for?

Congratulations to Ryan Suleski, who answered:

“Supermajors help defend the colony and break apart tough spots in their food.”

Congratulations, Ryan! You just won a free Ultimate Ant-Keeping Handbook from our shop!

This week’s AC Question of the Week:

Why was the temple called Shelfordella?

Leave your answer in the comments section, and you could also win a free e-book handbook from our shop!

Final Reminder!

Hope you can subscribe to the 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! 🐜❤️