This video was one of the most difficult and time-consuming videos ever made on this channel! Today we wage war against one of the most widespread and pestiferous ants in the whole world! Watch as we trap an army of pharaohs.
War vs. Pharaoh Ants
OK, so are you ready for this? Here was my plan. Phase One: Locate the site of the colony. I needed to know where the Pharaoh ants were stationed. For sure, they had moved into my place recently from the outside. Highly nomadic and known to form extremely long foraging trails, Pharaoh ants cover some amazing distance when they travel. I followed the trail of Pharaoh ants, and it took me up the glass, across this bracket to the west side of the Garden of Eden, down the glass, and across this entanglement of wires. From here, the ants formed a trail up my curtain, across the air conditioning unit, crossing this shelf, along the doorway of my bathroom, down this long stretch of wall, up this door frame, and surprisingly into the Cavern of Darkness—a hole which leads through the drywall accommodating the tube of our Dark Knights. My goodness! The Pharaoh ants were living between my walls!
Alright, and now for Phase Two: The Line of Death. Stopping all food provisions into the Garden of Eden for a couple of days caused only a few Pharaoh ants to be seen wandering inside. I needed there to be as few Pharaoh ants as possible before using my secret weapon. Now, I’ve never featured this secret weapon on this channel before because I’ve never needed it, until now. AC Family, behold: Diatomaceous Earth chalk. I’ve used it to effectively battle cockroaches in the past, and it has never failed me—not once. This powerful stuff is composed of microscopic fossilized remains of plankton called diatoms. Under a microscope, these diatoms look like shards of glass, and AC Family, get this! Once these particles of diatomaceous earth get onto an insect, they puncture them, absorbing vital lipids in their exoskeleton, and the insect dies of dehydration!
What’s totally amazing is that diatomaceous earth is actually non-toxic, and unlike regular chemical pesticides, there is no potential buildup of tolerance like there is to poisons because the method of killing is physical, not chemical. In fact, you’ve probably even eaten this stuff before, perhaps even today! They add diatomaceous earth to a multitude of grain-based foods like cereal, oats, bread, flour, rice, and muffins in order to kill beetles that typically infest grain-based foods. But warning: Don’t eat this pest chalk, because companies can blend in other materials into it which could be harmful if ingested.
For those of you who have followed this channel for a while now, you know that I make it a rule to never kill ants, even if they’re pests. But I feel this could be classified as a dire situation requiring some extreme measures because the safety of all our pet ants is in jeopardy. I proceeded to outline the periphery of the terrarium with the chalk. I made sure to go all the way around to the back. I also made sure to chalk the wires of the lighting. No ants could now cross these chalked areas and survive. Another thing to note, though, was that this chalk barrier was only effective for a couple of days because the moisture in the humid air of Manila, where I live, renders the diatomaceous earth chalk ineffective after a while. This chalk needs to stay dry in order to work.
And now for the most critical phase, AC Family: Setting the traps. I prepared a pair of acrylic containers, each with holes on opposing sides. In one hole, I fixated a piece of polyvinyl tubing. The tubing of one of these containers was placed against the wall near one of the Pharaoh ants’ foraging trails, and the tubing to the other pressed up against the adjacent trap. And now to add our bait. In our first trap: a delicious cockroach, irresistible to any prospective Pharaoh ant. And in the second trap, perfectly suited to our alien ant invaders: Mars chocolate. I made sure to wipe the tweezers along the outside of the tube to get the smell of the bait all over it. Also, I had to place the covers on these traps so the smell of our bait would fill the inside. We needed our traps to smell tantalizing!
Next, we required some messenger pigeons—informant Pharaoh ant workers to squeal and tell the colony about the tasty food inside our traps. With a cotton ball, I gently collected a few worker ants and threw them into the traps along with the bait. The idea was to get these ants to find the food and excitedly run back home to tell the rest of the colony to come and eat. And look! It seems the ants were acting exactly as planned, having discovered our bait and feeding on it. They will soon make their way back to the colony, leaving a pheromonal trail all the way home, which will help direct the ants to the food and into our traps. Let’s hope this works, AC Family! I decided to come back later to check and see if our plan was working, and I sure hope it would. Our Titans were counting on us.
A few hours later, I came back to check on our traps. Good news! It seems the ants had discovered our bait. Yes, the plan was working. Not a lot of ants yet, but it was just the start. Not many eating the chocolate yet, but it was OK. It was only a matter of time before the ants would come biting down! Let’s come back later. Returning to the traps, I was anxious to see if the ants had come swarming. Let’s check it out! Yes, tons of ants! Look at them seething! In addition, ants were now tasting our chocolate. Ants ran with full bellies back to the nest, but I wasn’t going to remove the traps until they had at least one queen in them. My aim was to try to dispose of as many queens as possible. And actually, here! I spotted a queen inside the first trap. She still had wings, but it seemed one wing was missing. There was no way to tell if she was one of the fertilized egg-laying queens or if she was just a virgin alate, but it was good enough for me.
Time for Phase Four: Removal! I blocked both entrances to the first trap and removed it from the site. Here you go, Pharaoh ants! How about some chocolate? It tastes out of this world! Sliding the chocolate over, I placed a fresh new trap with another freshly killed cockroach inside. I knew it wouldn’t be long before the ants would come discovering this roach too and start swarming inside the new trap. Let’s come back later and see. Let’s check our traps, AC Family! Ants eating the chocolate, and yes, ants also eating our roach. So now we knew the system worked! I plugged up our chocolate trap and slid over the roach trap, and in its place, a new trap, this time with some cut-up superworms. I wanted to change up the bait because I didn’t want the ants to get bored of our bait choices. I found the ants would send more workers out on-site if the food was new. I just loved how our plan was working!
So I continued this trap removal and installation method over the next couple of days until I was able to remove a significant number of ants. Now AC Family, get this. I happened to make two very interesting discoveries during this trapping process. First, I found when the ants were eating protein bait, like insects and such, the trails to and from the bait were fairly uniform and orderly. But as soon as the ants were eating chocolate, the trails were berserk! Ants broke off the trails, and some formed sub-trails, while others just seemed to generally be lost. It was as if the ants were drunk! Haha! Look. Interesting, right? Perhaps we can study this in a future video!
The second discovery I made was downstairs. So my ant room is on my second floor, but down in my kitchen towards the door leading to my balcony, I happened to spot an ant trail of Pharaoh ants. Another Pharaoh colony?! The trail extended onto my kitchen floor. I had to find out where these Pharaoh ants were coming from. I followed the trail up and found the ants were emerging from a space in my balcony door frame leading outside. On the other end of this trail, the ants traveled along the foot of my counter and then somewhere inside it. And that’s when it hit me! This wasn’t another colony. It was the same colony. AC Family, this Pharaoh ant trail went all the way from my balcony door, into my counter, and from there somehow into my walls, and all the way up to the second floor, emerging into my ant room.
Can you believe it?! Can you imagine how much distance these ants were traveling relative to their size just to get the food? That is quite the distance! And what blew my mind even more was that this could also mean this Pharaoh ant colony could possibly be bigger than any of us ever imagined. I live high up on the 15th floor, but I bet this Pharaoh ant trail was actually stories long, extending into other condo units of my building on multiple floors. Like an invisible giant entity, this Pharaoh ant colony was extending its silent tendrils into all areas of my building, moving at will floor by floor, collecting food along the way to grow its colony bigger and bigger. Who knows? With multiple queens constantly giving rise to tireless workers, this colony could, in fact, be absolutely massive, simultaneously reaching into many of the buildings and homes in my neighborhood. The implications were endless and just mind-boggling! These Pharaoh ants were indeed the true definition of a supercolony!
After all our trapping, believe it or not, AC Family, it eventually got to the point where no more Pharaoh ants were seen. And so began Phase Five: Precautionary Maintenance. With vinegar, I wiped down all the areas where the Pharaoh ants were trailing. I did this several times in order to break down the ants’ chemical trails. I also fortified the baby powder barrier in the Garden of Eden. As for any Pharaoh ants remaining inside the Garden of Eden, I made sure to lay down some bait and remove them from the site once they came swarming. And as of this morning, AC Family, I am happy to announce that the Pharaoh ants that once threatened our Titans were no longer around to cause trouble!
I placed a cockroach into the Garden of Eden this morning, and it filled my heart with joy to watch as our Titans came swarming in to claim their rightful meal. It was hilarious to see some Black Crazy Ants also rushing in trying to get to the roach, but our Titans, being the alphas, were not having it! Check out how they kept all the Black Crazy Ants at bay!
Now, AC Family, are you ready for the surprise? As for the Pharaoh ants, some of you may be wondering what I did with all the Pharaoh ants caught in our traps. Did I kill them? Well, in last week’s video, so many of you expressed how much you wanted me to capture the Pharaoh ants and place them in their own setup to become another ant colony to join our growing family of ant colonies within our ant room. And so, your wish was my command.
Phase Six: Captivity. Turns out, I converted all the traps into miniature terrariums, using soils borrowed from our Garden of Eden so they contained all the springtails and microorganisms needed to break down waste, and connected them all together via tubing. And when I say tubing, I mean tubing! These ants love to travel? Well, I made sure they had all the traveling space they needed. And what’s ironic is that parts of their new home consisted of our Titans’ old towers. I cannot wait to give you an official tour of their setup, AC Family, in a future video!
After this entire ordeal, with our ants all safe for now, and a new ant colony to join our family, I am truly relieved and excited for what’s next. It seems these Pharaoh ants, which the world has learned to loathe, can be controlled without the use of harmful pesticides. It just required an understanding of how these ants behave and live. It seems although they are called Pharaoh ants, they were still actually slaves to their own biology.
Thank you for watching, AC Family, and until next week, it’s ant love forever!
Alright, AC Family, isn’t this just incredible?! We managed to successfully control our Pharaoh ant problem plus acquire a new ant colony in the process. Oh, and this new Pharaoh ant colony needs a name! Please take the time to vote here for an official name for our Pharaoh ants—my top 5 picks of names suggested by you, the AC Family, in last week’s video. If you found this video entertaining and informative, it would mean a lot to me if you could hit the LIKE button, share this video with your friends, and leave me a comment.
Oh yeah, and if you’re not subscribed yet, hit that SUBSCRIBE button and slap that bell icon to keep updated on our weekly ant videos. AC Inner Colony, I’ve left a hidden cookie for you here, if you would just like to watch some extended play footage of our Titans enjoying their meal this morning while warding off their Black Crazy Ant neighbors!
And now it’s time for the AC Question of the Week! In last week’s video, we asked: Name one thing Black Crazy Ants and Pharaoh Ants have in common? Congratulations to Arda Mudarso who correctly answered: They are both polygynous, meaning they have more than one queen. Congratulations, Arda! You just won a free ant t-shirt from our shop!
In this week’s AC Question of the Week, we ask: List any one of the phases of our ant trapping process in this video! Leave your answer in the comments section, and you could win a free ebook handbook 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!