Greetings AC Family,

The Golden Empire is flourishing as usual, but you won’t believe how much their water beast residing in their communal pool has grown!

Yellow Crazy Ants and Their Pet Water Beast

Last week, we welcomed a new ant colony to the channel, some golden-gastered Polyrhachis ants who moved into El Dragon Island, but we were shocked to discover the ants were gravely infected by a plague of mites. Together, we, the AC Family, decided to keep the ants and go ahead with treating them with lemon therapy. A bold move for us, but a choice I think we were confident to make because just beside this infected colony quarantined on El Dragon Island stands a kingdom of ants who actually managed to overcome and survive a mite plague in their past, reminding us every day of the power of perseverance and never giving up.

Today, we visit the majestic Hacienda Del Dorado and check up on how the Golden Empire, our yellow crazy ant supercolony, has been doing, along with their pet water beast/undertaker living in their communal pool. And AC Family, you will be shocked to see what our water beast looks like today!

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The Hacienda Del Dorado stands tall and mighty at the heart of the Antiverse, towering high above all other ant kingdoms in the Ant Room. Admittedly, it is one of my top favourite ant farms ever created on my ant-keeping journey. The Hacienda Del Dorado is a paludarium, which means it is part terrarium and part aquarium.

Peeking into the terrarium portion, the ants of the Golden Empire are busy going about their various usual tasks peacefully—constructing nest tunnels, cleaning and upkeeping the territories, and hunting for food. I could watch these ants all day as they construct some of the most impressive ant hills in the entire Antiverse.

One of the things I love about the Golden Empire is that they’re stingless. They don’t have stingers, and their formic acid sprays are too weak for me to feel, so I can work around them without having to worry about pain. Aside from that, I also love their gorgeous translucent golden colour, which sparkles like droplets of honey in the light. It makes for a beautiful sight to behold as they move about in orchestra.

Here is their feeding pit, the location where I place most of their food. And speaking of which, AC Family, it’s feeding time. Placing in a roach, and the Golden Empire is happy to accept the day’s feast offering. Take a look at them swarming that roach. That’s some great protein that will eventually make its way mouth to mouth to all members of the colony through a process called trophallaxis and end up nourishing the eight queens, as well as the colony’s larvae, who need the valuable protein the most.

If you look carefully, you’ll see the Golden Empire’s symbiotic co-inhabitants, a colony of springtails we call the Spring Cleaners, who live mutualistically with the ants. They feed from the Golden Empire’s leftovers and molds that grow from their bathroom areas and food scraps. Essentially, they need each other—a perfect example of symbiotic mutualism, a biological pact of interdependence between members of the Hacienda Del Dorado. Don’t you just love when two organisms become allies?

It’s also great that the Spring Cleaners are around because I don’t need to worry about spot cleaning so much, except maybe for things like this huge mango pit. Sorry, ladies. Just cleaning up!

But perhaps one of my favourite things about the Hacienda Del Dorado is the communal pool you guys called the Golden Springs, a planted rock face from which a spring feeds a pool of water, within which lives the great water beast of the Hacienda Del Dorado.

If you’re new to the channel, we moved a crayfish into the Golden Springs to feed on dead ants drowning in this pool. This pool, in fact, was set in place as a form of population control for the Golden Empire because imagine having eight egg-laying queens and no predators. The Golden Empire’s population needed some curbing, so this spring pool was perfect, as some ants would fall in and drown. So, we released a crayfish into the pool to eat these decaying ant bodies.

And AC Family, it turns out this crayfish recently shed its skin, which means it had grown in size, but when you see just how big the crayfish is now, you guys will completely trip out!

But hmmmm… it seems to be rather shy at the moment, hiding somewhere there in the shadows of its back cave. Let’s add some fish pellets and try to coax the beast from its darkened aquatic den. Alright, any moment now… Or not… Hmmm… Still shy. Alright, maybe if I turn off the spotlights, it’ll be much more at ease to emerge. Let’s try.

OK, this water beast is still reluctant to come out. I know it’s in there staring at us from within the shadows.

It was then that I noticed there seemed to be something odd about the rocky spring climb. It looked a bit stagnant. I moved aside the vegetation and roots growing around the spring, and yup, just as I suspected. Water wasn’t flowing from it. There was a bit of water movement, so I knew there was still a connection to the filter below, but the tube from it was definitely clogged.

Moving down to inspect the filter, it looked like water was reversing out through some holes, which were supposed to suck in water. Not good! I needed to locate the clog and remove it because currently, without this spring functioning properly, this water was not being filtered. Water entering and leaving the filter, failing to cascade down past the plants, moss, and algae was not being purified, and dirty, poisonous waters are bad news for the Golden Empire who drink from the Golden Springs and Emperor Sapphire, who lives in it.

So, it was time to put on my gloves and assume the role of royal plumber! I went in to inspect the filter, and unplugging it from the spring tube, I saw that the water was still flowing properly from it, which only meant the spring tube was clogged up. So, I gathered my highly sophisticated tool—a piece of wire—and I tried my best to stick it into the hole from the top of the spring.

But no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t seem to get in through the top. Golden Empire ants were crawling all over my arms at this point, tickling me, but still quite the disruption.

My next attempt was to try to stick the wire in through the bottom! I pushed the wire as far into the tube as I could, and surprisingly, it went in pretty far, and when I felt I had gone far enough, I pulled the wire out—and with it came all the gunk that had clogged the Golden Springs. Take a look at how much gunk I managed to pull out. Pretty gross.

And after reconnecting the tube to the filter, voila—the spring was restored. This was awesome! Water once again cascaded down and around the rocks and moss and past the roots of the plants, biologically purifying in the process. The waters could once again be clean enough for the Golden Empire to drink and Emperor Sapphire to live comfortably in.

And since I was successful as a plumber just now, I might as well take on the title of Royal Gardener, too. I rearranged some of the vegetation back into place and cut back some of the leaves of the philodendron and bird’s nest fern. Now I bet all this work around the Golden Springs really spooked out Emperor Sapphire. Let’s leave the Hacienda Del Dorado alone for the night and revisit in the morning. Man, I just love this kingdom so much. Lights off…

By morning, the Hacienda Del Dorado is alive with the onset of morning sun. The Golden Empire relishes their day’s cockroach meal in the feeding pit. Still no sign of Emperor Sapphire emerging for us. He’s quite the recluse, isn’t he? We’ll see him eventually!

I love how alive the Hacienda Del Dorado is all the time, workers of the Golden Empire always on the move, constantly changing the shape and look of the Hacienda Del Dorado. Can you believe these lands once looked like this? These territories have evolved massively to become the paludarium extravaganza it is today.

If you haven’t followed the Hacienda Del Dorado story and the epic history of the Golden Empire, it’s truly one of my favourite storylines on this channel. Feel free to watch the Golden Empire’s entire journey here after watching this video. It’s full of ant wars, creatures coming and going, carnivorous plants, mites, and, of course, ant pets like Emperor Sapphire.

I say Emperor Sapphire is the Golden Empire’s pet because I do feel the ants keep their crustacean co-Del Doradan somewhat contained in the Spring Pool. Surprisingly, Emperor Sapphire has made no attempts to escape or crawl out of the Golden Springs ever, although he technically could at any time. I do believe Emperor Sapphire genuinely loves the Golden Springs, but I am also confident the Golden Empire has made sure to let their Emperor Sapphire pet know that he is not to leave his aquatic palace.

It looks like overnight, the waters have improved due to the plumbing fix and have trickled down a neat new path along the leaves, creating surface water disturbance, which was excellent because it increased oxygen in the waters—a great thing for Emperor Sapphire.

Speaking of which, AC Family, no sudden movements. Emperor Sapphire is in our presence. Do you see his antennae? Look at how wide they stretch, from one end all the way to the other! Isn’t that amazing?

Alright, let’s try again to coax him out of hiding. Adding some fish pellets and oh, here he comes! AC Family, look at him. Oh, he didn’t come all the way out, and I don’t think we could appreciate his size from what we just saw, but let’s hope he comes out a bit more later.

It really amazes me observing Emperor Sapphire living within the Golden Springs, as he will randomly decide to show himself—or body parts. I know he has great vision and waits for me to leave the Ant Room before emerging to do his thing, and the few times he did emerge in my presence, my camera was not on or nearby, or I was too slow to capture his brief appearances.

I even tried different tactics to get him to come out entirely for the camera, like bribing with lettuce. It worked, sorta. Emperor Sapphire is no dummy. He grabbed the goods and retreated into the darkness of his cave. I even tried placing in a superworm treat, but that seemingly disappeared when I blinked. Emperor Sapphire is smart, fast, and elusive.

I actually don’t mind this, and I want him to know that I respect his need for space and privacy at all times. I do feel he trusts me, and so I would never go in and force him out of hiding. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about all this nature videography, it just takes a little patience.

While waiting, I was often distracted by the Golden Empire traveling through their various established trails and pathways around the Golden Springs. AC Family, have a look. I loved how proficient these ants were around water. They had regularly traveled wooden bridges, plant roads, and Great Wall Highways all around and through the Golden Springs, and despite all this slippery terrain and fast-flowing water, most ants generally did not slip in.

And AC Family, take a look at this! I also loved watching the ants drink from the Golden Springs. Because of the Golden Empire’s semi-translucency, you could see which ants were carrying water in their social stomachs to deliver to the rest of the colony underground. These workers were like living water servants, collecting water from their communal pool and distributing it throughout the kingdom.

Isn’t it amazing how ants are essentially like a real human kingdom? And AC Family, here we go finally! Have a look at the face of the kingdom’s giant pet water beast. Emperor Sapphire has finally agreed to come out and say hello! Look how big he is! And look at that gorgeous blue colour! His claws were adorned with ruby-coloured hair, and he was emerging to pick at stuff from the filter.

Isn’t he just so adorable?… I mean, OK, manly and emperor-ish! Awww… I think I offended him.

Having the Hacienda Del Dorado and all its inhabitants has truly been an incredible journey. The Golden Empire, though perhaps not the most popular colony on this channel—perhaps because they get overshadowed by some of their more aggressive counterparts—has still stood the test of time. They’ve persevered and problem-solved and have learned to establish a great balance with the inhabitants sharing their territories.

It’s a feeling that most ant keepers who’ve had ant colonies that have survived with them for many years can attest to but perhaps can’t quite explain. In ant-keeping, I do feel like I grow with my ant colonies that have been with me the longest. I wonder if you guys who have been following this channel for a while feel it too?

Don’t you guys feel the Golden Empire has become family, much like we were accepted by them into their fold, to walk among them in their territories, to watch and be part of their everyday lives and challenges, and even care for their village pet?

Well, that’s how I feel, and I don’t at all feel like I am their master. I feel more like they let us in, and I am grateful to have been able to experience the Hacienda Del Dorado with you guys again today, and hopefully for more Golden days to come.

Long live the Golden Empire and the Hacienda Del Dorado.

It’s ant love forever.