Greetings Ant Lovers,
My queen fire ant, named the Crimson Queen and her loyal army of fire ants named the Crimson Knights are just savage! She and her minions are planning something terrible against my Muarauder Ant Colony named the Leviathans, and I am unsure what it is. Here is how the Crimson Knights are doing now. Hint: Stay tuned for the epic reveal at the end!
But meanwhile, I’ll keep the mansion in Marauder’s Alley in case they change their mind and want to move into it.
Thank you all for allowing these ants into your hearts. I’m excited to discover with all of you what’s next in this ever-unfolding, twisting, and winding Leviathan story.
But secretly, within the shadowy outskirts of Marauder’s Alley, lay a very dangerous force that was silently amassing their numbers—rivals to our Leviathans.
The Crimson Queen and her growing army of fire ants, named the Crimson Knights, watched from afar, promising themselves that one day their kingdom would overthrow that of the Leviathans, who seemed to be taking over the channel and winning over love from AC Family everywhere.
“Not over my dead body,” the Crimson Queen uttered. “For three generations, fire ants have always ruled the Antiverse!”
The workers had just finished off a roach on their feeding grounds and were about to explode in numbers, determined to catch up to the Leviathan army.
“The Leviathans,” the Crimson Queen vowed, “shall see their ultimate doom at the stingers of the Crimson Knights!”
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AC Family, a few weeks ago, our young fire ant colony, named the Crimson Knights, was finally ready to be moved into their next setup.
I unplugged their test tube and attached it to their new home and tapped in an ant that was attached to the cotton blocker. The stray fire ant worker wandered around a bit, then soon rejoined its colony, who were all bewildered by the brand-new living space.
Now this Queen fire ant of ours is up to something. I’m not quite sure what, but whatever it is, I know it’s something… insane.
But guys, just a tip—stay tuned until the end for a big surprise I saw that left my jaw on the floor.
So as you can see by our Crimson Queen’s brood, this colony is on the brink of explosion.
The first meal within their new home was this mealworm, which the workers inspected and accepted graciously.
These fire ants very quickly adapted to life in their new home.
A week later, the fire ants had learned this setup to be home. Let me show you around real quick.
To the right is a test tube containing fresh water, and as you can see, the Crimson Knights have been drinking a lot. As they consume the water, this bubble gets bigger and bigger.
I’ve also given them a honey drop for their meal this week.
Now for those of you who are new to the channel or ant keeping, this new home of our fire ant colony is called an AC Test Tube Portal from AntsCanada.com.
It’s got several uses in ant keeping, but in this case, it’s the perfect intermediary home between the founding test tube stage of an ant colony and an actual ant farm once the colony is big enough.
It’s got a perforated cover that comes off and a feeding chute for when I don’t want to open up the whole thing.
There are four openings, one of which is plugged up with a perforated AC plug.
This here is a test tube adapter to restrict the hole to the water test tube—just a preference of mine, just in case the colony decides they want to move into this test tube.
On the other side, next to the colony, is a sugar water test tube to give them a constant supply of sugar.
Now I gotta quickly do some maintenance, cleaning up this honey drop, which the ants already ate from and can no longer finish.
I just use a wet cotton ball to clean it up and keep this whole Test Tube Portal fresh.
Now with it being the start of anting season again for those of you in the northern hemisphere, if you need ant keeping supplies and equipment like this AC Test Tube Portal, be sure to visit us at AntsCanada.com.
We ship worldwide and offer easy-to-use ant keeping supplies that you see me using in my videos—found nowhere else but at our shop.
Alright, now let’s have a look at the colony, shall we?
The Crimson Queen and her Crimson Knights have been off to an incredible start. This was them a couple of weeks back, and I’ll show you what the colony looked like this week in a sec.
They’re determined to amass in numbers. The first generation of worker ants, known as the nanitics, have now all died off, having fulfilled their purpose at getting the colony started.
All of these ants and babies are feeding from all the food I’ve been giving them.
Our fire ant Queen is looking quite content, planning and scheming her next move to overthrow our Leviathans.
Now guys, check this out.
As you saw in a previous video, the sudden spike in heat where I live caused our Leviathans—our Marauder ants—to go into estivation, a hibernation-type state where the ants go dormant while waiting for temperatures to cool off. They went off feed and pretty much didn’t seem active at that time.
But as for these fire ants, which are invasive and not a native species at all, hailing from South America originally before in my country, they do not go dormant in response to the heat. In fact, they love it!
Heat causes fire ant colonies to grow, eat more, and become more active.
And I’m assuming it’s because where they are originally from in South America, it must get much hotter than it does in my country.
So needless to say, unlike the Leviathans, our Crimson Knights have been loving these scorching temperatures these past few weeks.
Now you may notice that their test tube is looking a bit dirty, and the reason for that is because there aren’t enough workers yet to keep up with house cleaning duties.
But that soon changed because look at what the colony looked like a week later.
First off, a ton of new eggs! This is the most our Crimson Queen has ever laid now, and she will continue to pump them out.
In just a week, there is a much greater worker force now too.
Now let’s have a look at the other brood down there. Let me try to wiggle this AC test tube slightly so we can get a better…
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Look… and voila! A huge larvae and pupae pile!
Isn’t that incredible?
Fire ants are just explosive and a highly prolific species.
But do you notice the test tube looks a lot cleaner?
This is because with more workers, they now have much more help licking all surfaces of the nest clean with their antiseptic saliva.
The brood must also be licked and kept clean, fed, and organized by age, and the Crimson Knights have been totally on top of that in their AC Test Tube Portal.
You can see the colony’s garbage pile there, and their latest meal—a cut-up baby roach.
I expect this colony will be ready to be moved out into a new setup in a few weeks’ time when their test tube fills up with more brood and workers.
I’ve been trying to think of what setup I should put them in next. Any ideas, guys? Suggestions?
Should we keep them in a setup where we can still see inside the nest like this?
Or should we offer the colony some dirt to dig into—which means we won’t be able to see the colony?
Or should we move them into an AC Ant Farm, like an AC Ant Tower, so we can get the best of both worlds?
Let me know!
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Guys, now as I watched our Crimson Queen and her growing army of fire ants, I noticed her turn to look over into the distance.
“What is happening over there?” she sneered.
She was looking at Marauder’s Alley…
“Those fools.”
And AC Family, check out what she had discovered…
Fungus.
And above it, a grand event had begun…
The Leviathans had finally decided to move into their giant mansion.
The great immigration… has begun.
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It’s Ant Love Forever! 🐜
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