Hello Ant Lovers,
This week we have a special treat! We introduce to you, our AC Family, our new Yellow Crazy Ant Colony and explore what the creation of a Supercolony is like.
Ant War or Supercolony: New Yellow Crazy Ants
Ooh, oh, oh, oh.
What’s up, AC fam?
Welcome to another episode of AntsCanada!
OK, so you know your life has been taken over by ants when this work desk used to be for working, but now it’s just a land full of ant countries.
We have, of course, the Fire Nation, our red tropical fire ants. We’ve got our black crazy ants over there, yet to be named soon, and yes, yet another mini ant world right there, waiting to be populated.
Yes, AC fam! We’ve got a new ant colony, and this video will truly blow your mind.
Today we’re gonna break the rules a little bit, attempting something that all ant keepers know you shouldn’t do.
Today, we’re mixing two ant colonies… together!
We’ll be taking this small two-queen ant colony and combining it with this huge single-queen ant colony of the same species.
Now, in most cases, this isn’t allowed because they’ll fight to the death, even if they are the same species.
You see, unrelated ants will engage in an ant war.
So why on earth are we doing this, breaking one of the principal rules of ant keeping? Well, it’s because these ants are rule breakers themselves!
Introducing the world-famous Yellow Crazy Ants (Anoplolepis gracilipes), which are known to form super colonies and combine colonies together.
And when I tried to combine the two unrelated colonies, the result shocked me.
Will they fight to the death, or will they be kind and join forces? It’s time to find out! You won’t want to miss all the crazy ant action ahead, so watch until the end of this video.
AC family, meet our new yellow crazy ants here at the AntsCanada ant channel.
Now, one of my favorite parts of having an ant colony is creating their home.
As the ants’ keeper, we are the initial designer of their universe, so what you house your ants in is super critical.
I’m placing my hand here at the back for size reference.
I’ve chosen to house my new ant colony in an “AC Outworld,” designed naturalistically with an AC Field and Forest Biome Kit.
I’ve created a sort of rocky slope, with a biome kit hardening ground plate, into which connects the tubes that lead into their AC Hybrid Nest.
And if you look just beside the outworld, you’ll see the Fire Nation, just an inch away.
I’ve chosen to use the Large AC Camponotus Hybrid Nest for these ants.
And yes, it’s the size large.
Now, by the way, I know a lot of you have been waiting so long for our Hybrid Nests Large to come back in stock, and I’m happy to announce that they’ll soon be available again—and in a size even larger than this one shown here.
Alright, now let’s check out our new yellow crazy ant Colony A.
So, here’s the story.
A friend of mine contacted me here in the Philippines, asking if I wanted to have a small yellow crazy ant colony with two queens and about nine workers.
Now, yellow crazy ants have always been my dream species, so of course… I said yes.
Take a look at them, guys, aren’t they so cool? Look at their color!
I find yellow crazy ants to be more of an orange-ish gold color, but in the sun, they shine a bright yellow.
I just love them so much; they’re such beautiful ants, and the coloration of the queens is just gorgeous!
Now, Colony A here is a very small colony.
As you can see, there’s just a few workers.
They’ve pulled a little bit of the cotton to kind of make their nesting area a little more comfortable.
And over there, you’ll see a little batch of eggs.
So, my idea for this great colony mixing was to connect Colony A’s test tube directly into the hybrid nest.
Alright, now let’s take a look at Colony B.
So, that same friend who gave me Colony A messaged me again and said, “Mikey, I caught an even bigger yellow crazy ant colony, and this time it’s got one queen but hundreds of workers and a lot of brood, all in a plastic jar.”
He asked if I wanted it.
Now, I had every intention of simply raising a big colony from just Colony A, but I remember hearing that, in the wild, unrelated colonies of yellow crazy ants would sometimes merge into a single colony.
To join forces.
In the world of ants, the faster your colony can grow in numbers, the higher the chances of success for the colony, so colony fusion is a great bio-strategy for certain ant species, yellow crazy ants allegedly being one of them.
So after some thought, I decided to go for it.
I knew there was a danger that Colony A would totally be killed, but if my hunch was correct and the rumors were true, these two colonies would merge.
And so, my plan was to shine a light onto this jar, get it all bright and hot so the colony would be bothered, and then I would attach this tube to the jar.
If everything goes well, the bright lights will cause the ants to move into the outworld and then eventually find the hybrid nest.
Now, as for Colony A, again, I plan to attach them right here.
[sigh] OK, AC fam… here we go!
The moment of truth.
Let’s cross our fingers, guys, and hope this doesn’t end up in a huge ant bloodbath.
Attaching Colony A to the hybrid nest… now.
And now, time to attach the jar of Colony B to the outworld.
[sigh] OK, here we go!
Wrapping some cotton around…
and I’m going to unplug this hole here…
Oh! It’s too small!
I’m going to have to use a smaller tube, I guess.
Put that back there…
Such processes are often just kind of ad lib… on the fly.
It looks like Colony A isn’t really making a move into the hybrid nest yet.
OK, now I’ve got a smaller tube, which attaches to this larger tubing.
Let’s see if this fits.
Perfect!
OK, and now the next step is to unwrap the jar so we can expose the colony to the bright lights.
Wow, look at all those ants!
And now all we’ve gotta do… is wait.
All it takes is just one ant to move through this tube and discover that there’s a more suitable place for the colony to be.
Check out the exciting process!
Come on… come on…
There we go!
We have our first brave wanderer.
And it wasn’t long before it came back to tell the colony.
“Girls! Follow me! I found a great place for us to move to.”
But sometimes, no one listens the first time around, so she heads back to tell the others to really listen and follow her.
And sure enough, eventually, one of her sisters makes the decision to follow her.
So this starts a whole chain reaction of ants returning back to the colony, letting them know they found a cool location for everybody to move: a place that’s not so bright and perhaps not so hot.
More and more ants are coming now.
And they’re carrying the brood! This is awesome!
The move of Colony B has officially begun.
Right now, it seems the ants are just leaving all of the brood in a pile at the bottom of this tube, but it’s inevitable that one of the workers will be adventurous enough to discover the outworld.
Like a lone explorer on a new planet, the ant begins to scope the area.
This worker ant is super excited!
And wow! Did you just see that? It ran in a circle!
The ant is just thrilled to be able to discover this new land, and it rushes back to the rest of the colony to let them know there’s a whole new world just beyond the tube.
Some people doubt that ants have emotions, but there’s a lot of evidence that insects actually do experience happiness and excitement.
And you guys just saw that yellow crazy ant’s happy circle dance, right?
The process of moving for Colony B continues, with more workers dumping more of the brood into the tube and more explorers scoping the outworld.
Imagine what it’s like for these ants, having the opportunity to explore a new area with new smells, new ground, new everything!
Their sole purpose right now is to find a suitable location for the colony to nest, and it looks like the tube is getting a little congested now and will make a suitable temporary nest for the time being, until these surveyor workers find a nest.
And it’s only a matter of time until they discover the hybrid nest, which lies just beyond another hole on the other side of the outworld.
Still no signs of Colony A wandering out of their founding test tube.
I’m watching them like a hawk.
With the ants in the tube, we can get a better look at what the colony looks like.
The scientific name of yellow crazy ants is Anoplolepis gracilipes.
Don’t you guys just love the sound of that name? I love it! It sounds like gold running off the tongue!
Though they’re commonly called yellow crazy ants, they’re not in the same genus as our black crazy ants, whose scientific name is Paratrechina longicornis.
Yellow crazy ants, like the black crazy ants, get their name from their fast, erratic, and explosive movements.
For me, yellow crazy ants are slightly quicker, but that could be because yellow crazy ants are twice as large as black crazy ants.
Also, like black crazy ants, yellow crazy ants have polygynous colonies, meaning there are multiple queens per colony.
Colony B here has one queen, seen here.
She’s hiding there in the pupae. She’s not a fan of our camera lights.
And also, with a clearer view of the colony through the tube, I do see the remains of a dead queen that they’re dragging around as if she’s still alive.
I wonder if the workers develop a biological attachment to their queens.
Could this be evidence of a form of ant grieving? Of ant love?
Now, if Colony A and B do happen to join forces, this colony will be a three-queen colony.
But I still have my fears that Colony A will be attacked.
Oh no, look here…
The first scouts discovered the hybrid nest.
They begin searching around the hybrid nest, and it seems they’ve picked up a scent of Colony A nearby.
And it’s not long before one worker enters the tube that leads to Colony A’s founding test tube.
Watch what happens.
The worker from Colony B approaches the entrance… with caution.
And then… contact is made.
The scout from Colony B rushes back to the colony!
And surprisingly, the workers of Colony A instantly go to follow that worker and join the colony, along with some brood!
In fact, it was as if the colony just picked up their stuff and headed out to meet the unrelated colony, including the queens!
And what shocked me the most was how Colony B responded to Colony A’s two foreign queens.
Queen 1 was met with a lot of force, and she struggled to fight off the workers.
I panicked. Were they killing her?!
Surprisingly though, Queen 2 was met with much tenderness, with a very different attitude.
The unrelated workers of the new colony surrounded her and began cleaning her and massaging her gently.
The greeting was so beautiful and tender.
And seeing this, I decided not to interfere with the interactions happening with Queen 1.
I had a small feeling that this was normal interaction, part of an instinctual yellow crazy ant ritual perhaps.
I watched both queens and couldn’t believe how opposite their receptions were into the colony.
The really opposite dispositions were just so bizarre.
With the colony completely moved out of the jar, I connected the tube back to the hybrid nest, so all the ants and the brood in the tube were then moved into the hybrid nest, including the queen from Colony B.
Now, as for the queens of Colony A, the workers were interacting with them.
Just as quickly as the ants moved out of the jar and into this tube, the colony moved from the tube to the hybrid nest.
They were very efficient.
And as usual, I’m going to leave a hidden cookie for you guys here, if you just want to watch ants moving into the hybrid nest. Exclusively for all you Inner Colony members. Wink!
So it seemed the workers were prodding the queens of Colony A into these holes to move them into the nest.
I think they’re officially joining forces.
Poor Queen 1 though. She is not having it.
It seems the colony has bigger plans for her.
And just like that, all the brood was moved into the hybrid nest.
There’s Queen 2 being ushered to the nest, quite peacefully.
And there’s Queen 1, just kicking and screaming along the way.
They’re dragging her into the nest whether she likes it or not.
And then it occurred to me.
These workers weren’t killing this queen… they were subduing her and almost turning her into a slave. An egg-laying slave.
And it reminded me that in the ant world, queens, unlike humans, aren’t the leaders of the colony.
They’re equals.
And I guess, in some species like these yellow crazy ants, slaves.
It was time to leave the colony alone and allow them to acclimate.
Alright guys, this video has gone on so long now, and so we’re going to have to do a part 2 to this video.
So, AC fam, tune in next week where we get to see how these ants are doing and how they’re adapting to their new home, and of course, how the new queens are adapting to their new colony—our new yellow crazy ant super colony, that is!
And of course, guys, as always, you guys are going to name them, so start leaving your suggestions in the comment box and don’t forget to give a thumbs up to any suggestions that you really like!
I’ll pick the finalists, and then you guys will vote in a future video.
Thanks so much for watching another episode of the AntsCanada Ant Channel!
Until next week, AC fam, it’s Ant Love Forever.
Alright guys, we’re not going to end this video without the AC Question of the Week.
So, last week we asked: “What is the name of the process in which ants transfer food to one another from mouth to mouth in a ‘kissing action’?”
Congratulations to Moty Games, who correctly answered, “Trophallaxis.”
Moty Games, you just won a $50 gift card to our shop!
And now for this week’s question of the week:
This week we ask: “Name one difference between black crazy ants and yellow crazy ants besides their color.”
Leave your answer in the comment section, and you could win a free e-book from our shop, which is a complete handbook on ant keeping, complete with care sheets, nuptial flight schedules, and an ant glossary.
Thanks so much, guys, for watching another episode of the AntsCanada Ant Channel.
Don’t forget to subscribe, because we release a video every single Saturday at 8 PM Eastern Standard Time, and we give away free ant prizes in every episode.
Also, be sure to visit us at AntsCanada.com.
Hope you continue to watch these videos because these ants here on the AntsCanada ant channel are also your ants as well.
See you later, AC fam—it’s Ant Love Forever!