Greetings AC Family,

This week’s video is Part 2 of our new Yellow Crazy Ant Supercolony’s story. See what happened to Queen 1 from Colony A, VOTE for a name for the colony, and watch them do an Ant Mannequin Challenge! Hope you like the new video, fellow ant lovers!

Ant Mannequin Challenge + Name Voting | Entering the Nest: Yellow Crazy Ants

Welcome back, AC fam! So if you saw our last video, you saw that we took the risk of combining two yellow crazy ant colonies because they’re known to form super colonies. We had Colony A, a small two-queen colony, and Colony B, a large single-queen colony. We watched as Colony B moved out of their jar of capture and into their new hybrid nest, and how they reacted to the two new queens of Colony A. Queen 2 of Colony A was received peacefully by the new colony, while Queen 1 had a nightmarish reception. And so, in this update video, we’re going to get down to their micro-level and see how this new three-queen yellow crazy ant super colony is doing today in their new home. We’ve given them—has Queen 1 accepted her new colony, or is she still even alive? Also equally as exciting, we’re going to start voting on a name for this super colony in an interactive voting session via iCard polls using names you guys suggested in our last video on this colony. So get your voting fingers ready and be sure to watch this video until the end! Finally, let’s not forget that, as always, we have another surprise giveaway at the end of this video with our AC Question of the Week, as well as announcing last week’s winner of the AC Question of the Week. So here we go, AC fam! Let’s look closer and get to know our brand new yellow crazy ant super colony better here at the AntsCanada Ant Channel.

Ah, you know, I’ve said this many times on this channel, and it’s true—there’s nothing cooler than having a brand-new ant colony living in a setup that you’ve created for them. As you can see, it looks like the ants are using their outworld as they’re supposed to. We have workers wandering around foraging for food. We’ve got workers way down there—you see that entrance, that little hole leading to the nest? It looks like they’ve arranged for some guards to make sure that all entering and leaving are from their colony. Like most ants, these ants are very territorial and guard their home with their life.

Now, if you look here in the foreground, you’ll see that some ants are working on an abdomen of a cockroach, and beside it, you’ll see more ants working on a cockroach nymph. This is really great news because, over the past few days, I’ve been trying to test to see what these ants like. You see, whenever I get a new ant colony, the very first task that I need to do is find out what their diet is. What’s their palate like? What kind of foods will they eat, and what kind of food will they ignore? And it’s quite the relief that these ants do like cockroaches because I’ve got my own cockroach farm and an unlimited supply of these cockroaches. Now, these cockroaches aren’t domestic pests; they’re a special feeder roach that act more like beetles. They’re known as Dubia roaches—they’re very popular in the insectivorous pet trade.

Now, these ants are very active—I find them active during the day, active during the night. It’s like they’re 24 hours non-stop working. And I also love their color. Speaking of their color, it’s time to vote for our first round of names. And this first round of names is a set of the most popularly suggested names that have to do with their color, containing the word ‘golden’. So what’s going to happen here is we’re going to vote in four rounds for names. I’m going to take the winner of each of the four rounds and choose one wildcard, and then, in a future video, you guys will be able to vote for an official name for this yellow crazy ant colony. Sound good? Alright, here we go, AC Council! So go ahead and click this iCard to vote for your favorite in this first round of names. Go ahead—we’ve got the Golden Alliance, the Golden Legion, the Golden Horde, the Golden Army, and the Golden Empire.

Alright, moving on. Now, if you’ve been watching our videos, you know that ants require a protein source, which in this case will be the cockroaches, but they also absolutely need a sugar source to give them energy. And so these ants are really loving this honey-water mixture—literally just honey and water mixed together and provided to them in a test tube. I prefer to offer ants liquids via a test tube because the ants don’t drown, and it also keeps the liquid food clean of any dirt and debris. And look at that worker over there, just full of honey—it’s like she can’t move! Oh my God, guys, this is the yellow crazy ant mannequin challenge! I’m going to put that in the title, and anyone who says this is clickbait is a cotton ant egg! These ants are doing pretty good at this mannequin ant challenge, wouldn’t you say? Let’s give them some credit!

Alright, so I love watching these ants just for hours and hours here—it just looks like they’re patrolling their anthill, which I’ve created using an AC Field and Forest Biome Kit with an AC Outworld from our shop. Now, I decided to create a sort of rocky, mossy outcrop because every time I’ve seen this species in the wild, it’s always been around boulders or rocks, cement structures, along with mosses. And so I wanted to duplicate that sort of natural environment here in this outworld. I also wanted to keep it relatively bare so that it would be easy to clean and so that I could see the ants a lot better. I just love the way the ants look traveling across this terrain—they just kind of pop because of their color.

And speaking of their color again, are you guys ready for the second round of name voting? This round features names also about color, and I found them to be the most liked and some pretty good suggestions. So here we go—click this iCard here and vote on the second round of names: the Yellow Rangers, for all of you Power Ranger fans; the Sunlight Warriors, for all of you Dark Souls video game fans; the Air Nomads, for all of you Avatar: The Last Airbender fans; the Golden Gladiators, for those of you who are fans of shoes; and the Banana Republic, a cool place to go shopping for clothes. AC Council, time to cast your votes!

You know, I feel really lucky to be able to keep three very cool species of ants all together on a single desk. Now, you can see them all here in this shot. We have, of course, our new yellow crazy ant colony here, and then above them, you’ll see a tube belonging to our black crazy ant colony. And actually, this black crazy ant colony is still waiting to be named, so if you haven’t yet, be sure to click the link that I’ll put in the description box for our previous video, where we had a voting session with you, the AC Council, much like this video. Okay, and to the back there, you’ll see the Fire Nation, our red tropical fire ants. These are three busy highways of three very different species. Now, in nature, I don’t think the highways would be this close together because all of these species are natural enemies. And furthermore, you wouldn’t find concentrated nests like this of each species this close together, and I’m sure they can smell each other because they’re in close proximity, and they share a single desk. My hope is that as the colony gets larger, I’m going to have to move each to their own table. My God, soon these ants will take over my place!

So you see this outworld here of the yellow crazy ant super colony is super close to the Fire Nation—just look right there! They’re literally one or two inches away, so I’m sure they smell each other’s pheromones. Now, if we were to mix these two species together inside, I do feel like the Fire Nation would win. I could be wrong, but I would never mix these colonies together, so forget it for those of you who want me to.

Okay, so a lot of you might be asking how am I keeping these yellow crazy ants, or all of my ants, in their outworld? Well, if you’re new to the channel, what I use to keep my ants in their outworlds is an ant barrier. There are several ant barriers you can use to keep your ants in their outworld. Here in the tropics, I like to use baby powder mixed with rubbing alcohol, and the dried mixture becomes super slippery for ants. And on top of that, these AC outworlds are perfectly designed to keep ants inside because it’s got a lip where you can apply the deterrent, and it’s cornerless, so ants can’t grab onto the corners and get out. And of course, it comes with a secure lid to keep all things out, including other ants just in case, and in the case here in the Philippines, geckos, and that sort of thing, and keep the ants in.

Alright, I know some of you guys are thinking, enough of the outworld. Now, let’s go into the nest and check out the queens—see how they’re doing. So, I’m ready to go in. Are you? Okay, but wait! Before we go in, let’s do our third round of voting, AC Council. It’s time to vote—click here to vote for the third round of names for our yellow crazy ant super colony. Here, we’ve got the Yellow Army, the Yellow Empire, the Yellow Nation, the Hyper Nation, and the Saffron Syndicate.

Alright, moving on—let’s go into the nest and let’s venture in from an ant’s perspective. Okay, so we start here at the entrance of the nest. We’re met with some ant guards—you can see them crosschecking this ant here, making sure she’s part of the colony. Every member of the colony has a certain colony scent—it’s kind of like their ID badge. I love watching them enter, and as we travel through the tube, we’re met with another set of ant guards here at this nest entrance. Talk about high security, right? This ant is checked, and she’s let in. This security team is serious business because with all the traffic of ants moving in and out, all the young and the queens inside the nest, it’s important that the entire colony is protected. And it looks like this guard here has ended her shift.

The way I see it, since ants are a superorganism, these ants here are kind of like antibodies, or like your skin, that keep all foreign bodies outside, protecting all of your insides. And now, let’s look at the insides. Time to open the nest and find out what’s happening with our queens. Doing a quick scan here, and it looks like we have one queen there… and I see another queen right there in a separate room. But I don’t know where the third queen is. I can’t seem to see her. I continue scanning the different rooms because usually, a queen is surrounded by a cohort tending to her needs and grabbing eggs as she lays them. Guys, I’m starting to get really worried—where is she? It looks like our third queen, which I bet is Queen 1 from Colony A, is no longer around. I tried checking all the places she could possibly be. I checked the colony’s water test tube; I checked every brood pile and mass of ants. Did the colony kill her? I am so sorry, AC fam—sometimes in this hobby, things don’t work out the way you want them to. And in this case, I think we’ve lost Queen 1. The colony must have killed her, and I’m not too sure why. I could have sworn that they were going to get along eventually. No, I feel really, really bad, guys. You know, being the owner of wildlife can sometimes be really sad.

But hey, and here we have Queen 1! She just appeared out of nowhere. Where did she come from? Where is she going? So happy to announce, guys, that Queen 1 is alive! Wow, and where is she going? So, I think the bright lights from our cameras are really deterring her, so she’s attempting to nest in the tube here with a bunch of workers and a lot of the brood as well. Thank God! Guys, I am so relieved that Queen 1 is still alive and that it looks like she’s settled into this colony now.

Now, one of you guys commented on the last video on this colony during part one, saying that the reason why Queen 1 from Colony A probably wasn’t having a good time during the introduction was because perhaps she was the dominant queen of the two-queen colony she was part of, and so she had dominant pheromones. And so, when Colony B met this queen, they sensed her dominant pheromones. But in order to stay faithful to their already dominant birth queen of Colony B, they had to subdue this Queen 1. And to me, that sounds very plausible and probably what happened. And it looks like the queen, once again, is disturbed by our lights, so she’s heading back to the nest, and it looks like the workers are following suit, and they’re bringing all the brood back too. These ants really don’t like light.

Okay, so I’m really happy to know that this colony has adapted well to their new home. The three queens are living in peace, the colony looks like they’re healthy, and they’re continuing to produce more young. And at that, it’s time to vote for our final round of names for this yellow crazy ant colony. So here we go, guys—click this iCard here to vote for your final round of names. We’ve got the Gleaming Nation, the Citron Swarm, the Amber Alliance, the El Dorado, and the Sun Warriors.

Alright, guys, thank you so much for watching this video—really, really appreciate it, AC fam! And as always, I’ve created a hidden cookie here for those of you that just want to watch these ants moving back into their setup from this tube. Take care, AC fam. Please subscribe to our videos and tune in next week. Until next time, AC fam, it’s ant love forever!

Alright, of course, we can’t end this video without the AC Question of the Week. Last week, we asked: Name one difference between yellow crazy ants and black crazy ants besides their color. Congratulations to DragonX, who correctly answered that yellow crazy ants are twice as large as black crazy ants. We also would have accepted that yellow crazy ants are slightly faster than black crazy ants, and that they’re from two different genera. Congratulations, DragonX! You just won our Ultimate Ant Keeping Handbook from our shop!

And now for this week’s AC Question of the Week. This week, we ask: How many checkpoints does this yellow crazy ant colony have before entering the nest? Leave your answers in the comment section, and you could win a $20 gift card from our shop. See you guys soon, AC fam! It’s ant love forever! Guys, don’t forget to subscribe—hit that subscribe button, and also hit the bell icon beside it just so that you can get a notification every time we upload a video. And don’t forget to visit us at AntsCanada.com—we’ve got lots of ant goodies for you to check out. See you!