Greetings, AC Family!

Can you believe these fire ants? Watch how incredible this FIRE NATION ant colony is at dealing with fast-flowing water in their habitat! You also won’t believe the grand event that occurs at the end!

Fire Ants vs. Water

The Fire Nation came pouring out of the tube and onto the wooden limb.

It wasn’t long before it was clear that the ants had claimed the Selva de Fuego as their home.

But then I noticed something.

There were some ants that had fallen into the water.

A lot of ants, actually.

More than I was comfortable seeing, and it didn’t look like they were dealing too well either.

The gang of guppies swarmed ominously beneath them, seeming very interested in these isolated and helpless ants floating at the mercy of the river’s currents.

Suddenly, I grew fearful and began to question my choices.

It looked to me as though these fire ants weren’t as apt to deal with this river as proficiently as I had anticipated.

It had only been a few minutes, and there were already tons of ants helplessly fallen into the river, which to me meant many, many more would soon join them as time went on.

The ants were now shipping in the brood.

Things were getting serious!

I even thought I caught the guppies taking test bites at the fallen ants.

Suddenly, the worst-case scenario came to me and hit me like a knife to the heart!

What if the queen were to lose her footing here and also fall into the water and be eaten?

That would mean the permanent demise of the Fire Nation.

My heart raced.

I had to think fast!

I began to panic as the impending feeling of having made a big miscalculation grew within me.

AC Family, I can’t help but feel like I screwed up this time!

I think creating this Amazon River world was one huge mistake!

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Welcome to the AC Family. Enjoy!

As the fire ants rushed about, I had to remain calm so I could think logically and tackle each problem separately.

First, I had to address all the ants falling into the water.

Many of you said it: just move the tube to the ground.

How silly of me!

Of course!

I carefully moved the bridge tube away from the water so the ants could have direct access to the soils.

Done.

Now to address the ants that seemed to be drowning in the river.

They needed a lifesaver of some kind, and it just so happened that we had the perfect rafts for them to climb on.

I pushed over some of the frogbit so these fallen ants could climb aboard and dry off.

Suddenly, things didn’t seem as dire anymore. What a relief!

I think the thing that worried me most about all of this was the fact that in a previous video, these fire ants showed perfect mastery on a thin tightrope we made them walk to get to food. Remember that video?

This is why it shocked me to see so many ants falling off this much thicker and seemingly easily grippable branch.

But then again, on the tightrope, the ants were much calmer and traveling in generally a single file, unlike the huge mad column here, which now understandably could lead to some ants slipping off amidst all that hustle and bustle.

In addition to that, I think the fact that I wasn’t seeing the ants forming their triumphant body rafts right away also scared me a bit.

Should I now expect helpless drowned ants to be a common sight in the Selva de Fuego?

If so, I wasn’t prepared for that, and I didn’t plan for our river to sustain masses of drowned ants long-term.

Anyway, after these minor changes to our master fire ant emigration plan, things did seem to get better.

The ants didn’t hesitate to begin digging out their subterranean super base in the virgin soils of the Selva de Fuego.

The fish were seemingly unfazed by the ants that could be seen in full view at their side.

But I did notice the Ram Cichlids seemed particularly curious and loving just watching the ants.

It appears we aren’t the only ones, AC Family, who love ant watching.

Speaking of the Rams, if our newly betrothed breeding pair were awkward at first, that phase was now over. The two were completely bonded and inseparable. How nice!

But it wasn’t all warm and fuzzy in our river world, as I watched our gang of guppies completely chastising the ants that were taking refuge on the frogbit.

These guppies are such bullies!

One of the things that really impressed me, though, was how the fire ants of the Fire Nation seemed to be learning how to manage life on these lifesaving, floating islands of frogbit.

Watch this, AC Family.

Check out these incredible frogbit-stranded ants collectively swimming their frogbit to a nearby branch.

The currents moved the frogbit around, but you could clearly see that all the ants had one common goal in mind—to get to the wood.

A few of the ants were unlucky enough to lose their grip and get carried away by the swirling river currents.

Come on, ladies, you can do it!

The currents helped move the frogbit along.

Ahhhh, so close, yet so far.

By night, the situation in the Selva de Fuego definitely seemed a lot more stable.

I noticed the guppies, who initially appeared to threaten the fire ants, had finally grown bored of terrorizing them.

As for the ants, it was amazing to observe them now impressively proficient at finding various ways to make it to dry land.

Any ants stranded on frogbit islands were now very effective at synchronized paddling to nearby wood.

The ants even cooperatively formed bridges on the water’s surface using their own bodies to gain access to other frogbit islands.

From there, ants found neat staircases to dry land, like these natural ropes of Spanish moss.

Even though the ant colony had been moving in for almost 12 hours now, there was still a lot of the colony left to move out.

The Fire Nation was truly a massive kingdom!

I didn’t even know if the queen had moved in yet.

She usually doesn’t move out until a certain percentage of the ant colony has moved out, perhaps because she needs to be absolutely sure the new home is secure and safe, complete with her necessary royal interior preparations.

She is, after all, a VIP and needs to have all her diva requirements met before her grand entrance!

And perhaps also because she needs the majority of the ant colony to be around her at all times.

It’s unclear whether she decides when it’s okay for her to move out or whether the colony decides for her.

I guess that’s something we’ll never know.

Meanwhile, at ground level, the construction of nests was well underway.

I was amazed to see the ants building anthills right up to the edge.

They towered high like great forts situated at the water’s edge.

How they even managed to pull off attaching sections of soil vertically to the glass was beyond me!

Talk about incredible architects, wouldn’t you say?

What’s amazing about all of this is that if this had been humans, it would have been a huge architectural operation, with several teams overlooking different aspects of the construction and following a master blueprint.

But with these fire ants, there are no job-specific teams, no master blueprint—just one huge colony all working together, following some collective intelligence that ultimately results in a massive, complex underground sanctuary.

Can you believe it? The Fire Nation just astounds me!

I wonder where they’re going to choose to set up their garbage site.

Let’s hope it’s not in the water!

I was relieved to note that our barrier of fluon was working to keep the ants inside the setup.

Thank goodness I didn’t have to worry about the ants escaping—for now, anyway.

The Fire Nation was, at this point, busy transporting the brood. These young fire ants were the lucky ones to emerge from their pupae as the future first generation of Selva de Fuegans.

It was so satisfying to see that this entire emigration operation seemed to be under control and running smoothly now.

And then I saw this.

AC Family, this kind of caught me off guard.

Huge larvae!

Oh boy, the alates are coming.

I completely forgot it was the season.

The reason this was an area of concern was that the Fire Nation was now starting to produce young queens and males with wings for this year’s nuptial flights.

I didn’t exactly have a plan for dealing with that yet, but I think we have some time to formulate a contingency plan of some kind.

By morning, our fish were waking up to greet the new day.

Peeking into the Hybrid Nests, I was happy to discover that almost all of the colony had moved out overnight, and most certainly, so had the Fire Nation queen.

And so, AC Family, later that night, after disconnecting their evacuated old home, I could officially announce that the Fire Nation had completely moved into their new territories—this massive jungle river paludarium known as the Selva de Fuego, a replication of the fire ant motherland we know as the Amazon River Jungle.

The day before, I was worried this jungle river habitat was unsuitable for the Fire Nation, that the river would end up killing the colony.

But now, 36 hours later, I was surprised to note that the surface of our river was crystal clear and free of ants, and our river floor was also fire ant body-free!

This, to me, meant the fire ants had learned over this short period how to live around this moving body of water.

I knew they would figure it out!

I loved watching the ants living in the Selva de Fuego.

They began establishing clear trails—busy ant highways across the soils to other entrances nearby.

It was amazing to see that the Fire Nation had claimed these territories as theirs!

And so did the fish!

I caught the Ram Cichlids fully defending the best section of the river with a clear view of the ants.

It seemed the cichlids were unwilling to share this prime area for ant watching!

So now, AC Family, are you ready for this?

A final surprise that I think you guys might like a lot!

We had the plants, we had the river, we had the aquatic animals, and we had the ants.

But there was one final touch that I had planned to make this a true Amazon Rainforest, and oh, AC Family, sit back.

It’s time!

At exactly 7 o’clock, right on the dot, something amazing starts to happen overhead in the Selva de Fuego.

Something great and life-giving.

Rain.

Using some tubing and an automatic timer, I figured out a way to recreate a mini rain shower for one minute within the Selva de Fuego every morning and night.

It took a lot of testing and adjusting, but eventually, I managed to get the drops to fall perfectly and evenly like rain.

Now, I didn’t have to worry about watering the jungle, as it had its own storm system.

As the life-giving raindrops fell, hitting the plants and soils, it seemed as though it was a celebratory, heavenly sign for all the inhabitants of the rainforest that they had been blessed with a new, perfectly self-functioning home to call their own.

After the rains, as is our AC tradition, I offered the Fire Nation a housewarming gift.

I gave them, on behalf of us, the AC Family, a mighty cockroach feast on a stick for our beloved ants to enjoy, who were now super hungry from the great move.

They came swarming to the feast.

Watching the ants pour out of their underground castles was amazing!

It’s moments like these that ant keepers live for!

I cherished the sight—triumphant and awe-inspiring!

The one thing I learned from this whole experience was that one cannot completely predict how nature will unfold, no matter how thoroughly you think you have all bases covered and all blueprints drawn up.

I discovered on this day that with nature, there is no perfect contingency plan, as it clearly has a mind of its own.

One can only guide life in a certain direction, like physically cutting out a river, but life will always inevitably flow freely like water, undominated as it so chooses, along the path of least resistance.

AC Family, I was happy to say this Selva de Fuego project was an utter success…

That was until I noticed, the next morning, that the fire ants had been busy cutting out their own path of resistance.

The fluon barriers I had placed to ensure the ants remained secure inside the Selva de Fuego had weak spots.

Overnight, the ants had figured out that the corners were easier to cling to despite the fluon barrier.

Oh no!

So far, it looked like they hadn’t yet figured out a way to cross the upside-down lip.

But that’s not all!

What I spotted next caused me great concern.

The rains overnight had naturally cued some guests to emerge from their nests, and there, on one of the frogbit islands, were fully grown male and female alates.

We didn’t have the time I thought we had to prepare.

The fire ants were now starting to have mating flights!

What was I going to do to keep all these fire ants inside?

It was then that a tiny movement in the corner caught my eye.

A tiny spider was lassoing some of the ants that managed to get too close.

At first, I asked myself, how on Earth did a spider get in here?

It must have come in with the plants.

But what was more important was that it was at that very moment that a crazy idea came to me, which would offer a great solution to both my fire ant escape problems.

Oh boy, this was about to get interesting.

AC Family, just when I thought things were all settled, it seems the adventure has just begun!

Tune in next week, when we add a team of special guests to the Selva de Fuego to deal with escaping ants and flying alates!

Trust me on this, guys, you won’t want to miss next week’s crazy, action-packed episode, so hit that SUBSCRIBE button and BELL ICON now so you don’t miss out on this mind-blowing ant story!

Also, remember to hit the LIKE button every single time, including now!

AC Inner Colony, I’ve left a hidden cookie for you here to watch full footage of the Fire Nation enjoying and devouring our great housewarming gift.

You won’t want to miss out on what’s there!

Also, I wanted to quickly address our completely failed attempt at live-streaming the Hacienda Del Dorado this week.

For those who don’t know, I had scheduled an interactive live stream where you could feed the ants yourselves with Superchats.

I was completely surprised to see how many of you came to support by sending in Superchats to feed the ants.

In the short time we live-streamed, over 60 of you sent in your Superchats, which was completely unexpected.

Those with Superchats of over $30 got their names on personalized flags, which skewered giant roaches.

The full list of SUPERCHAT supporters is in the description box!

Thank you, guys, so much!

Needless to say, the Golden Empire had a complete and utter feast and loved it.

But the only thing was, due to the slow internet connection in my part of the world, the live stream continually kept cutting off.

Every time I tried to reconnect to the stream, all of you received live notifications to your devices, emails, and home feeds.

When I learned this, I cringed!

I sincerely apologize to all those who were not only looking forward to the live stream but also to the hundreds of thousands—possibly even over a million people—who received a barrage of notifications from me every time I reconnected to the live stream.

Someone mentioned it was around nine notifications!

It seemed we lost some subscribers due to the annoying notifications, but I promise, it won’t happen again.

I have contacted the YouTube support team, who will hopefully help us avoid future complications like this.

The great thing, though, is that now I know an interactive live stream like this is possible, and I’ve already begun brainstorming an automatic feeding system so you guys at home can feed the ants yourselves from the comfort of your own home or mobile device during an ant live stream!

Isn’t 2018 technology just amazing?

Alright, and before proceeding to the AC Question of the Week, I just wanted to plug my new daily vlogging channel for those curious about what I do between these weekly ant videos.

I upload daily life vlogs of my travels around the world, and it also includes a lot of biology stuff.

Alright, and now it’s time for the AC Question of the Week!

Last week, we asked:

What did all the plants and animals living in the Selva de Fuego have in common?

Congratulations to Aaronn Carrington, who correctly answered:

All plants in water and on land are native to the South American Amazon.

Congratulations, Aaronn! You just won a free e-book handbook from our shop.

In this week’s AC Question of the Week, we ask:

Why does the Fire Nation queen take her time when moving out of an old nest and into a new one?

Leave your answer in the comments section, and you could win a free ant t-shirt from our shop!

Hope you can subscribe to the channel as we upload every Saturday at 8 AM EST.

Please remember to LIKE, COMMENT, SHARE, & SUBSCRIBE if you enjoyed this video to help us keep making more.

It’s ant love forever!