Practice English Speaking&Listening with: Ant Cam POV: What It's Like to Be a Yellow Crazy Ant
Wow!
Guys, ever wonder what it's like to be an ant?
Like I mean get down to their level and size and see what they see, stand among them, check
out their microworld and experience the ant perspective?
Well, today we do exactly that, by watching my yellow crazy ant super colony, called the
Golden Empire, move into their specially designed formicarium, and during this move, the ants
are up front and center, literally in our faces and tickling us with their antennae!
You're in for a big surprise so do keep on watching until the very end of this video!
AC Family, today we enter the Golden Empire's ant farm setup for a never before peek at
the giant lives of these crazy ants, here on the AntsCanada Ant Channel.
Please SUSBCRIBE to my channel, and hit the BELL ICON!
Welcome to the AC Family!
Enjoy!
Behold the most fortified encampment of the Golden Empire, the queens' quarters.
If you look into the middle of all this chaos you will see one queen there, another queen
there on the right, and a third one lies somewhere deeper here.
Pretty cool that the Queens quarters are so close to the surface at the moment that we
can actually get to film them!
You can even see one worker carrying a batch of eggs right there.
The Golden Empire here currently has at least 5 egg-laying queens, who all share the duties
of laying the colony's eggs.
The fact that this colony has multiple queens is pretty special in the ant world, as not
all ants allow multiple queens living together in harmony.
There's a fourth queen there being tended to by an entourage of workers making sure
she's comfortable and protected.
And wow!
Looks like the fifth queen is also above ground with a loyal worker hoisting up the batch
of eggs she's laid today.
But something is different, and the fact that all these queens are not in the nest, but
instead, are above ground in their outworld, is definitely out of the ordinary.
AC Family, the colony is preparing for something major, and it's to happen very soon.
But in order to understand what and why this major event is about to happen, you must first
understand what this colony has been through.
If you're new to the channel, the Golden Empire here, this cute multi-queen yellow crazy ant
supercolony is one of the OG ant colonies of this channel, and has probably been through
the most challenges of any ant colony I've ever owned.
They're actually rehabilitating at the moment, after having experienced a mass apocalypse,
literally not even kidding!
You see at one point they were a massive, glorious colony of millions, but were unexpectedly
hit by a lethal plague of blood-sucking mites which reduced them to just a few hundreds.
I was able to save a small population and put them into quarantine, where I treated
their vampiric body mites with predatory Hypoaspis mites harvested from rhino beetles.
We managed to recover five queens and the colony has since continued to grow in numbers
since their mass culling and following mite cleanse.
And so, I'm happy to announce that today the colony is healthy and has grown nicely into
their Hybrid Nest Outworld setup, and therefore are ready for an additional expansion to their
living space, and that AC Family brings me to why these queens and all the workers seem
to be preparing for a major operation, one that will surely blow your mind as it did
mine.
It actually also has to do with the very big surprise I mentioned at the start of this
video!
Hang tight, because the most incredible event and footage we've ever shot on this channel
is about to happen in just a few moments!
Check this out, AC Family!
What you see here is dried up sphagnum moss.
It's actually the hydration layer to the Golden Empire's Hybrid Nest ant farm.
I've stopped watering this hydration layer, and as a result, if you look into the Hybrid
Nest, you'll notice that the ants have completely moved out.
They simply treat this space like walking area, and not nest area.
These tunnels and chambers used to house the majority of the colony, but because the space
got a bit too dry for their liking, the colony decided to move out and into their outworld
where it was a bit more moist.
It was all part of my plan!
So once the majority of the colony was moved into the outworld, I also stopped watering
the outworld, not to the point where they were suffering, but just enough for them to
feel it was time for them to pick up the colony and move to greener and wetter pastures.
And that, AC Family, is what is about to happen now.
The Golden Empire is eager to move, all according to plan!
AC Family, behold the newest hi-tech ant real estate, I am adding to the Golden Empire's
set up!
It's called an Ant Tower, but our newest large version!
It's a state-of-the-art, 2-in-1 nest + outworld ant farm enclosure, which I feel the Golden
Empire will truly love and benefit from!
Let me show you how it works!
It's an upright, dirt nest formicarium that stands 9.5 inches tall and 6 inches wide.
Picking it up, you'll see that it's cylindrical, with a perforated top, and an interesting
shape, but trust me, the design is pretty sweet for housing an ant colony.
Let's take a look at the cover, which pops off and is covered with microholes for ventilation.
The microholes make for good ventilation but are small enough to keep any outside wild
ants from breaking in to invade, and trust me, I've been there so I know full well just
how important that is!
It is designed so you can put your barrier underneath or along the top of the Ant Tower.
There's also a feeding chute that pops right off for easy feeding without having to remove
the entire cover.
Here you will notice there are three ports.
These two large holes are entrance ports, into which you can insert any of the two perforated
plugs that fit snugly in, or a test tube adapter in case you have an ant colony starting up
in one of our ant test tubes.
It just makes for easy moving of a budding ant colony into the Ant Tower.
In our case however we will be needing this large vinyl tube which attaches snugly into
the port hole without glue.
This little perforated hole here is for attaching a standard aquarium air pump in case you need
a bit of air circulation inside the Ant Tower.
Looking into the Ant Tower now, a rounded barricade slides out which is normally used
for smaller ants, but if you're housing larger ants, its removal creates a greater space
for the ants to create their chambers and tunnels between the inner and outer walls
of the ant farm.
The ants basically are forced to build their nest tunnels and chambers up against the wall
where you can see them.
Sometimes it takes awhile, but as the colony grows larger so do their tunnels and chambers,
giving you more access into their nest
Finally, the magic of this formicarium is how it is hydrated.
This hydration ring pops out and if you look carefully there are microholes through which
the water enters via capillary action, from this water ring tub here.
You can fill this space up with cotton or whatever hydration medium you choose, or simply
leave it empty if you wish.
Water rises up into the digging medium, therby providing the ants moisture.
So on goes the lid...
And there you have it!
Our Ant Tower Large, available only at our website AntsCanada.com.
I'm truly excited to move the Golden Empire into this!
Alright, AC Family, enough talk.
Let's decorate this bad boy!
First, I needed to add a layer of activated carbon, not something that is required, but
a precaution I've been doing lately to ensure the soils remain nice and clean of toxins
or poisonous elements.
It also ensures there aren't harmful trace metals in the water soaking into the digging
medium.
Next, I added my soil, and with a trowel packed the dirt down nicely into the spaces all around
the central barricade.
And after an hour of work, this is what the Ant Tower habitat looked like.
AC Family, behold, the newly decorated Ant Tower and future addition to the kingdom of
the Golden Empire!
Isn't it just cute?
I absolutely love it!
Let me show you around!
But first, let me spray this little piece of carefully crafted nature with some water
to moisten the lands in preparation for the ants soon.
I truly love the dimension and shape of this living, bioactive space.
The plants and mosses used here, in what is actually a mini terrarium are alive and beautiful,
and will help create a very naturalistic home for the Golden Empire.
I used vein plants as the primary plant and live java moss for ornamental ground cover.
I've covered the ground in leaf litter and wood chips to help give a naturalistic feel.
The plants and tiny soil creatures living here will feed on and thereby help break down
the ants' waste keeping everything within this enclosed living space clean and cycling.
So what do you think?
Do you think the Golden Empire will like this new home we've created for them?
And so, AC Family, the moment we've all been waiting for.
Without further adieu, it's time to move the ants into their new home!
You're in for a treat, guys!
The footage you're about to see, was some of the greatest footage I've ever captured
in the history of this channel!
First, I needed to add baby powder to the inside of the lid.
Though I choose for this to be one of those forever enclosed terrariums, I still added
some dry baby powder just in case I needed to open the chute during the move for whatever
reason.
Next, I filled the bottom tub with water so the entire nest would be hydrated.
Now the entire environment was perfectly moist and ready for the ants.
OK AC Family, and now for the best part!
What will make this move unlike any you've ever seen and any we've ever filmed on this
channel, is tonight we will get to see what it is like from the ants' perspective with
a tiny microcamera planted inside their moving tube!
You guys have asked for this for years, and finally, I've managed to make it happen!
So cool right?
I know!
Just wait until you see the ants like you've never seen them before!
Here we go, AC Family, connecting the tube at the Ant Tower port!
And now to connect the tube into the Hybrid Nest to give the colony access to their new
home addition.
Ready?
1 - 2 - 3!
Attached!
It wasn't long before a curious ant started to wander up into the tube, and enter the
unchartered territories of the Ant Tower.
I loved watching it explore the lands, then return to the nest to call the entire gang!
Little by little word began to spread of the new fertile lands that lay just beyond this
new strange tube that had been connected to their territories, sending more and more ants
to scout the new lands and verify that indeed this was an ideal place into which the colony
should move.
Which then gave us the perfect opportunity to get down to their size level and spy on
them moving in!
AC Family, time to enjoy some Golden Empire Big Brother!
The ants began to move into the Ant Tower but also came up to check on the camera.
Isn't it crazy!
This view at this micro size gave me chills, in a good way.
How about you?
Oh my!
It's almost like their antennae are tickling me!
Hahahah!
What we were seeing here was what it was like to be a part of the Golden Empire move from
I guess an ant's perspective!
It wasn't long before these new territories were the talk of the kingdom, and more and
more ants started to scope their future home.
I loved watching them climb the rocks, scale the walls, and explore every little square
centimeter of the lands.
I knew just by looking at them that the move was official and under way!
A few hours later, this was what the tube looked like!
Whoa!
Look at that traffic!
Ahhhhh isn't this crazy, AC Family?
Look at them, they're just in a complete mass.
Seeing them at this level was pretty incredible because it made me appreciate how effective
their communication must be.
Imagine, they all are on the same page seeing as they all communicate via pheromones, and
there are always multiple messages floating around, but the ants despite this chaos of
legs, antennae, and ant bodies all shuffling about, seem to manage carrying out any operations
they need pulled off?
Seeing the ants like this completely blew my mind!
Here's a bit of a time lapse!
If you look carefully, you can see that several mites have also come through the tube from
their main nest, but I think these are friendly mites, that feed on the ants' waste.
Now check out what the tube looked like several hours later!
Whoa!
They created a cocoon pile!
Wow I have never before seen ant cocoons up this close and personal!
There's even a larva there in the pile, and it seems to be busy in the process of spinning
a cocoon casing!
How awesome!
I believe turning the light on in the tube area for filming alarmed the ants and so they
began transporting the brood pile out of the area.
And hey look!
What a surprise!
There's a Hypoaspis mite, the mite species that cleansed the Golden Empire of their lethal
blood-sucking mites!
Incredible to think that not only were the ants moving into the new location, but their
microscopic friends and soil allies were, too!
I felt this was such an incredible opportunity, watching the Golden Empire for the very first
time in this very way special way!
It brought me a newfound appreciation for these incredible golden ants we've cared for,
and come to love for over three, at times challenging, but always awesome years.
24 hours later, this is what I saw.
A lot of the colony had moved into the Ant Tower, and look!
They completely redecorated!
Haha!
Ah well, I guess this was expected though, right?
I was totally fine with them customizing the living space as they saw fit.
They had totally burrowed into the soils and created some massive ant hills within the
Ant Tower.
I expect the plants to survive though and the lands to take shape over time.
This entire move filled me with such joy because I knew the Golden Empire here, though enduring
such a difficult past, was well on the road to recovery now to eventually rise once again
into the glorious ant kingdom they once were.
This additional ant tower will allow the colony to have more nest space to house their growing
population, the queens, and babies.
I tried to stay up to catch the queens moving into the new lands, but sadly, I fell asleep
before I could catch them.
They also haven't dug up against the walls yet, but I expect them to very soon!
I'm in no rush to see all these things right away.
I'm only here to care for the ants and observe what the ants allow me to see, and honestly,
what we saw today was sensory overload enough!
It felt as though for once, for a moment, I was part of the Golden Empire, standing
among them during such a large scale operation, which I otherwise would have only been able
to witness as giant from the outside trying to make out the ants through a vinyl tubing
wall.
AC Family, I appreciate with all my heart that you were here to join us.
I'll see you next week, and remember, it's ant love forever!
AC Family, did you enjoy today's episode?
I couldn't believe we were able to film what we filmed today in that tube!
Crazy right?!
Hey, another very intense video is up ahead next week, where we feed something very draconian
to the Fire Nation.
You won't believe how they ants ravage the corpse, so you know what to do!
Smash that SUBSCRIBE button and BELL ICON now for notifications, so you don't miss out
on the epic ant footage seen nowhere else but here!
And don't forget to hit the LIKE button every single time, including now!
It would really help a lot!
Speaking of ants, it's approaching the end of nuptial flight season in the Northern Hemisphere,
and a lot of you are catching queen ants now, and in case you didn't know, we've got all
the top of the line ant keeping gear for you ant keepers at all levels from beginner to
advanced, as well as a tonne of new and exciting products for the ant keeping community not
available anywhere else, so head on over to AntsCanada.com, and browse through our shop.
We ship worldwide, and offer full email support if you need us.
We also have ant colonies with a queen available in most regions, so go check us out and pick
up your ant farm kit and ant gear today!
If you're new to the channel, and want to catch up on all your AntsCanada Lore, feel
free to binge watch this complete story line playlist here, which traces the origins of
all the ant colonies of the ant room, so you can follow their stories and better appreciate
how these ant kingdoms came to be, and why we love them so much!
AC Inner Colony, I have left a hidden cookie for you here, if you'd like to watch the full,
extended play close up footage of the ants within the tube!
It's such a trip and you don't want to miss it, so check it out!
And now it's time for the AC Question of the Week!
Last week we asked:
What was I looking for, the following morning, to tell if queen ants had mated in my room?
Congratulations to Victor Aina who correctly answered:
You were looking for broken off wings on the floor.
Congratulations, Victor, you just won a free e-book handbook from our shop!
In this week's AC Question of the Week, we ask:
What other creatures other than the ants did we spot moving into the Ant Tower?
Leave your answer in the comments section and you could also win a free e-book handbook
from our shop!
Hope you can subscribe to the channel as we upload every Saturday at 8AM EST.
Please remember to LIKE, COMMENT, SHARE, and SUBSCRIBE if you enjoyed this video to help
us keep making more.
It's ant love forever!
