What happens when you put several ant colonies
together? Will they engage in war, or will they join
forces? In ant keeping, it’s a golden rule to never
mix your ant colonies together, even if they are the same species, because most ant colonies
will fight and it’s cruel. You see, each ant colony carries its own distinct
colony scent, like an ID badge, and if two teams of ants with different colony scents
happen to come together by way of overlapping territory for example, it would lead to a
lethal ant war. However, there are some cases where this golden
rule does not apply. This week, I tried my luck, and put together
seven young ant colonies of mine that I’ve been raising over the past 67 days, together
in a single living space to see what they’d do. Did the ants go to war or did they do what
I had hoped they would, and join forces to form one huge supercolony? The result was just jaw-dropping and something
I totally didn’t expect to happen at all. Welcome to the AntsCanada ant channel! Please SUBSCRIBE to my channel and hit the
BELL icon. Welcome to the AC Family! Enjoy! AC Family, OK before any of you start freaking
out and bashing me for ant cruelty, I have a few things to explain, as to why I figured
the odds of such an experiment were in my favour. Do keep on watching until the end, though,
as I have an important question to ask all of you and will be needing your opinions on
something very important. Now before I go over my reasons for performing
such a controversial experiment and then proceed to attempt the mixing of seven ant colonies
together, let’s do a quick recap for those who are new and are just joining us. These are our eight young carpenter ant colonies,
each colony exactly 67 days old. Within each test tube is a queen, her first
generation of worker ants known as nanitics, and brood. I captured each queen 67 days ago during their
annual mating nuptial flight, placed them into test tubes to simulate their claustral
chamber which the queens would have created in the wild, and each queen spent 67 days
laying eggs and eventually raising them to adult nanitics. Now the initial plan when I first started
this journey was to simply capture as many queens as I could (I caught 14 in total) and
see how many of them would go on to found successful ant colonies. I knew that in nature, not all queen ants
successfully make it to the colony founding stage, and in fact, at the start I wasn’t
sure if any of my 14 queens captured would successfully found an ant colony. 6 of the queens ended up non-successful at
even making it to the egg laying stage. Some died of natural causes like mold, mites,
and even parasitic maggots! But then as the remaining eight queens started
proving their colony founding prowess, I began to realize that, “OK I won’t be able to
keep all these ant colonies”, and in my mind, I figured I’d have to release some
or all but one of the colonies back into the wild. It was sad to think, as over the past two
plus months, I’d really grown attached to each of the ant colonies under our care. But then, after thinking about it this week,
an awesome idea came to me that was pretty crazy, but just might actually work. AC Family, listen to this. So here’s why I thought this experiment
was a pretty good idea. So, quick ant biology lesson: Most ant species
have colonies that are called “monogynous”, which means the ant colonies contain only
one egg-laying queen, who lays all the eggs and is the mother of the entire colony, like
fire ants, where there is a single queen ant, and her millions of workers and babies. That’s just how fire ants operate, and non-negotiably. There is definitely no way a fire ant colony
will adopt or accept a second egg-laying queen ant in the colony. Furthermore, only related colony members are
allowed in the nest, so fire ant workers from another colony are not allowed to join forces. Two fire ant colonies coming together, as
we’ve seen in a past video, will engage in a bloody war! There are however also ant species which are
considered ‘polygynous’ meaning they do tolerate multiple queens in a colony, like
in weaver ants where there could be dozens or even hundreds of queens all laying eggs
in a single ant colony. The workers just take care of and serve all
queens. Our yellow crazy ant colony, the Golden Empire
is another example where there are lots of queen ants in the colony, and they are so
polygynous that even if two unrelated yellow crazy ant colonies are placed together, they
kind of go into a quick wrestling match, but then decide to join forces, accepting all
new queens, and blending harmoniously to form a supercolony, which we’ve seen happen a
couple times on this channel already with our Golden Empire. And so, going back to our carpenter ants,
there are actually carpenter ant species which are polygynous. In terms of the carpenter ant species we are
keeping, I don’t have an exact species ID on them yet, but there are carpenter ant species
in my country that are known to be polygynous. In fact, we’ve kept them before on the channel,
if you recall the Lumberjacks. Now, if you remember the first video, the
nuptial flight of these ants kind of occurred inside my room, a cottage I’m currently
staying at in the middle of a mountain rainforest, and over time, I have been spotting evidence
around my place of the main carpenter ant colony, from which our queens and/or the males
that mated with them, mostly likely came from. In the mornings I would always find bits of
sawdust in certain places, discarded as a result of the ants’ tunneling activities
in the wooden structures of my place, and at night I spotted carpenter ants forming
active foraging trails around my kitchen. These carpenter ants, which were definitely
the same species as ours, were a pest species, and well-adapted to living in domestic spaces. I then began to wonder, if the mating nuptial
flights of this species of carpenter ant can happen indoors, and assuming an ant colony
sends out hundreds of these queen ants, and knowing that the success rate we’ve seen
from a 14 queen sample is about 57% that a queen will successfully mate and go on to
found an ant colony, then the chances of two or more carpenter ant colonies coming together
naturally and overlapping in real estate is pretty high, I’d say. Now, I have never seen a carpenter ant war
in my place so far, and so my hunch was, that a handful of mated queen ants of this species
of carpenter ant, end up founding ant colonies somewhere in the walls and form one massive
ant colony. I mean think about it: where else could the
queen ants go to found their ant colonies and not expect to run into a bunch of its
sister queens’ colonies, if they were limited to just this cottage? My guess was that they simply all blend together
and form a supercolony. Now if my hunch was correct, and these ants
of ours were truly a polygynous species, whose colonies can combine together to form supercolonies,
then I could actually end up keeping all the ant colonies and not have to release them. I could just combine them into one huge colony. That would be totally awesome, and the dream
of having a polygynous carpenter ant colony with all of these egg laying queens laying
tonnes of eggs made my ant-loving mouth water! Imagine the massive ant setup we could build
with wood and glass! Anyway, a third possibility is that the ants
from the different colonies simply tolerate each other being around, but don’t actually
mix. In this case, the ants would choose co-existence,
which would also be quite cool, but I don’t know how long I’d be able to keep the colonies
together in one setup as they grew. So, was it risky putting the ants together,
yes, but for me, AC Family, the odds were in our favour and it was worth testing out
in a controlled way, for science! What do you guys think will happen? Will the ants go to war with each other or
will they choose peace and join forces? Or will they ignore each other and accept
coexistence for now? Leave your guesses in the comments and afterward
go back to your comment and let us know if you were right! And so AC Family, here was my ultimate plan
for the great carpenter ant introduction. You guys will love this! AC Family behold, the Camponoseum, it’s
the great arena within which the ant colonies will have the space to wander and explore,
and eventually meet, in a highly regulated and controlled manner, where I could observe
how they interact, and separate the ant colonies if needed. There are eight holes leading into the arena
with rubber ports which perfectly fit the test tubes in which the colonies are currently
living. I made sure to keep minimal with the design
of the arena for now, so I could have full view of the ants and not have the decor create
areas where the ants could be out of view. We can always decorate this space more intricately
later on. The top lip of the Camponoseum had been painted
with a layer of baby powder and rubbing alcohol to act as a barrier so the ants don’t escape
into my room. So my plan was to first connect two ant colonies
to the Camponoseum and observe how they interact, before going ahead and adding the other ant
colonies. I would not proceed to add the other ant colonies
if I noticed they were showing signs of over aggression or going to war with each other. Now there are two things you should know about
this before we proceed with this experiment in the Camponoseum. First, if you’ve been following our previous
videos you will know that I suspect that our 7th ant colony which today is one of the biggest
colonies of the group with a total of 12 nanitics now, might actually be a different species
of carpenter ant from the rest. Haha! How weird. The queen is looking right at us. She’s just making sure we are friends. But as you can tell, this queen is slightly
more red at the head and thorax than the others, plus she produces brood with naked pupae which
is unique, because the other seven queens produce young that develop into cocooned pupae. Therefore, I have decided not to add colony
#7 to this mixing experiment, as they’d probably war with the other ants. I’ll just hold on to them for now and we
can all decide later whether or not we want to keep them, but man, look at those repletes,
will ya? The workers who have volunteered to be the
living food stores of the colony, carrying food stored in bulk in their social stomach
for gradual distribution. Love this colony! Alright now the second thing I needed to point
out was that, as you may know, Queen #5 is still raising her brood, as you can see she’s
behind the others and just has cocoons, and because of this tardiness, we suspect that
she may not have mated during nuptial flight. You see, as mentioned in a previous video,
due to ant genetics, unmated queens can still lay eggs but they only become male ants, which
would suck because male ants have no purpose in the ant world except wait around to mate,
which also means in the normal circumstance, if these huge cocoons which do look like male
ant cocoons, do actually hatch into male ants, the queen is as good as dead, because the
males wouldn’t be able take care of her. The other possibility is, that she’s been
eating some of her eggs over time so she could invest in fewer larger workers as her first
batch of nanitics. We’re still waiting for one of those cocoons
to hatch to be able to know for sure. It should be soon because I see the eyes darkening
which means hatch day is close. If males do end up hatching from those cocoons,
it was sad to think that Queen #5 and all her useless male babies, would have had to
be released into the wild to die. However, if my hunch was right, and these
carpenter ants do band together to form polygynous ant colonies, it would be a complete saving
grace for Queen #5 and her sons because then, I could simply introduce them to the other
ants and she would then have proper workers from the other colonies to take care of her
and her sons. Sure, Queen #5 wouldn’t be able to produce
regular worker ants and would just be dead weight for the colony eating up valuable food
and taking up resources, but at least she would live and could at least contribute to
the colony’s male ant population, for the next nuptial flight. Having Queen #5 in the mix would also be a
great way to tell if the workers are actually all mixing up, and not just sticking to their
biological, birth colonies, because if Queen #5 and all her males remain alive then it
means workers from the other colonies are definitely feeding her and her sons. And so this was the plan: connect seven of
our eight ant colonies to the Camponoseum, but before we go ahead and make the introduction,
there was one more thing I needed to do. Food! I placed in a cup of sweet jelly so the ants
had something to do while in the Camponoseum, and what better way to bond with new friends
than over dinner, or actually, in the case of these ants which are nocturnal, breakfast! Also, in terms of this eighth hole, I’m
blocking it off with cotton for now, as I can use this opening as a port to connect
to other setups in the future, or other test tubes containing water or food. OK, AC Family, here goes nothing. Are you ready? Let’s do this! I took Colony #1. Wow! I’ve always had a special love for Colony
#1, probably because it was also one of the largest colonies of the bunch, also with 12
worker ants now. But guys, have a look at how big the queen
is! Last week before we gave the colony their
very first meal ever, the queen was a bit skinny right? But it seems, AC Family, after we fed them,
it triggered her body to make that biological switch over to full egg-production mode, and
her gaster was now swollen with upcoming eggs, a condition known as ‘physogastry’! I love when queens get physogastric and all
fat like a balloon. It’s a good sign many more eggs are about
to come. I know a lot of you guys are fans of this
colony, as well. I took the colony, and attached it to the
Camponoseum. Once attached, I now needed to release the
ants, however I didn’t want to just rip away the huge cotton blocker because the claustral
cell still needs to remain as still and wind-free as possible, so to create the new opening
tunnel into the outside world, I have this! A small piece of tubing. I could just fixate it into some cotton and
it could act as a small door for the ants. I placed the tubing door and cotton into the
test tube. I held my breath, as I watched the first worker
ant emerge into the outside world for the first time in its entire life. Prior to this moment, the ant had only known
the test tube claustral cell in which it was born, but nothing was more amazing to this
ant than what it was seeing and smelling right now, as it stepped out into the Camponoseum
grounds to explore. This was such a special event to witness. A second ant came to smell the fresh outside
air. The curious, brave worker began to wander
around. It was at this time that I realized, oh yeah! It’s time to add the other doors and block
the ends of the tubes with cotton so the ants don’t escape. It would also make connecting of the other
test tubes much easier, when ready. Eventually, the first exploratory ant discovered
our sweet jelly and began to feast! Mmmm! The ant filled up its social stomach to the
max, and once fat like a water balloon full of sweet jelly, it began to embark on its
way back to the colony. It was at this time that I decided it was
now time to add colony #2. Also, an active and very promise ant colony,
Colony #2 seemed like they were eager to break free asap. Attached! AC Family, let’s watch! To my surprise, the ants of colony #2 were
not as eager to emerge. They waved their antennae outside the door
to smell but didn’t come out. But then something happened that made my heart
stop. The full ant of Colony #1 was heading straight
for the opening of Colony #2. Ahhh! Two pairs of antennae touched but the full
ant thought twice about entering that hole and headed towards the correct nest opening
of its birth colony. Woah! OK so no aggression so far. That was a good sign. Inside Colony #1 the brave exploratory worker
told its entire colony of the awesome food it found just outside the nest and began to
regurgitate it up to have the rest of the colony have a taste. This nanitic had done the colony proud. They would be sending out more scouts soon! But as for Colony #2, still no emergence. Just antennae poking out. Perhaps they weren’t ready? Colony #1 sent out its 2nd scout. It crawled bravely across the barren rocky
surface of the Camponoseum, following the pheromone trail the last scout left on its
way back home, all the way to the goods. Bingo! It stopped to fill up! And also made its way back home. Like the first scout before it, it began to
regurgitate the contents of its social stomach to its fellow colony members, and then to
its beloved queen. But looking at Colony #2, there still seemed
to be no interest in emerging into the Camponoseum, just a worker at the door waving its antennae
out. This was a little disappointing, but I surely
didn’t want to rush them. Colony 1 had now sent out its third scout
to collect food. It was at this time that I made a very split
decision. I don’t know why, perhaps I was just too
eager to see how the ants would interact upon meeting, and considering the fact that Colony
#2 wasn’t ready for an introduction yet, I made the executive decision to proceed to
add Colony 3 to the mix. Like Colony 2 it seemed Colony 3 was not yet
willing to emerge. The third scout of Colony #1 made its way
back to the colony with a full gaster. Man, Colony 1 was just doing so well at this! Great work, Colony 1. The Queen feasted happily! A worker from Colony 3 kind of emerged but
seemed a bit shy still, Colony 2 still waving those antennae from inside, and Colony 1 sending
out their 4th scout now, who crawled across the rocks over to the sweet jelly. Finally, I spotted a worker from Colony 3
getting more brave as it wandered outside the hole. Fourth Scout of Colony 1 was now full and
making its way back home. The workers of Colony 1 were just killing
it. They sent out a 5th scout, which wandered
around the Camponseum, and at one point I thought it was going to come in contact with
one of the other colonies, but nope. It was more interested in eating. As the fifth scout from Colony 1 began to
head back home, and I saw that there was still no hope for Colony 2 nor 3 to emerge, I again
made the sudden split executive decision to go ahead and add the 4th colony to the mix. Yes, I was crazy, I know. I just really badly wanted the ants of the
different colonies to interact, but of course, these were ants and they can’t always do
what we want them to right? When attached, a worker emerged from the hole
cautiously, with other workers behind it. It wandered around a bit but then reentered
the nest, not willing to risk wandering further. No! That’s it! I attached the 5th colony, which of course
had no workers yet, and the 6th colony. One of these ant colonies should be ready
to come out, but every time I made the attachment, the ants would just kind of peek out but not
come outside to forage. I decided to go all the way, and attach the
final colony, Colony 8 to the mix. This is when things took a very scary turn,
and when I began to realize that my impatience might have been a huge mistake. While I was busy connecting the other colonies,
I hadn’t noticed that a scout was finishing off its meal. I had assumed it was Colony #1’s sixth scout. That was until it began to head towards the
opening of Colony #3. Oh? Wait a sec. Was this a worker from Colony 3 that finally
decided to emerge without me noticing. Yay! Finally, Colony 3 was sending out its scouts. Perhaps now two workers from different colonies
would meet up. But, AC Family, I was not prepared to see
what I saw next. A meet up of ant strangers was exactly what
happened. I expected the full scout to come rushing
into the test tube, like usual, but instead I saw this. “Look whom I found entering our premises,
ladies. We’ve got a trespasser in our midst.” A worker had the scout who was encumbered
and full of jelly by the antenna. This was not a scout from Colony 3, it was
the 6th scout of Colony 1 that had wandered into the wrong hole! Oh no! I tried not to panic. They weren’t spraying formic acid yet, and
there was a possibility this was the wrestling ritual prior to the process of ant colonies
eventually joining forces. My heart stopped as I watched to see what
the ants would do next. A second ant came around to smell the newcomer. She seemed quite interested in her full gaster. Oh, I hoped they weren’t going to kill her! A third ant came to inspect the strange ant
with a different colony scent that had been dragged in Again, the full gaster was of great
interest. A fourth ant came to smell her out, too. The full ant tried to remain calm in the face
of this very tense moment and tried to sneak away, but it was no use. This worker was not about to let go so easily! “Why leave so soon,” the worker sneered
at the trespasser. “Our queen would like to see you now!” Instantly, the scout tried to burst away and
make a run for it, but the sudden struggle caused a blob of jelly to come bursting out
of its mouth from its fully turgid crop. The other ants seized the opportunity and
drank from this blob, like desperate hyenas hoping for an easy meal. “Let me go!” the ant pleaded. It was then, that the giant queen approached
to inspect her minions’ latest catch. “Now who do we have here?” the queen inquired as she waved her antennae
cautiously to smell. Workers continued to drink from the blobs
of jelly barfed up as a result of the ants’ complete fear. It was at this exact moment, that I completely
regretted this entire experiment! But one thing, I did notice, was they still
weren’t completely killing this ant trespasser. There was no formic acid spray, no tearing
of limbs, no panic. Just antenna cuffs and inspection. The full ant seemed paralyzed with fear and
almost surrendered to her fate at the hands of these foreign ants. But then suddenly, the ant who had been holding
the ant hostage the whole time, got hungry. She was envious of the ants that were able
to have a taste of the sweet jelly, so she released her mandible grip and attempted to
get the hostage to barf up more jelly. “Give me some of that!” That was enough for the ant to then spring
into action and escape. It leaped up to its feet and ran out the door! It almost went into the hole of Colony 2,
but nope! It wasn’t going to make the same mistake
twice. It quickly cleaned its antennae so it could
smell better and headed towards its home scent. It ran back to the correct opening of its
true colony, Colony 1 and rushed through the door as fast as it could. “OMG! Guys, you won’t believe what just happened
to me!” Boy, was she glad to be back home and safe! She proceeded to regurgitate the contents
of her jelly collection to her beloved colony members. I stayed up to monitor the colonies over the
next few hours, but none of the colonies had sent out scouts. Only Colony 1 seemed willing to send out scouts,
and there were times they’d come across the other holes but would never decide to
enter, nor would there be signs of aggression from home court. This experiment did not turn out the way I
expected. But, AC Family, now that you’ve seen exactly
what happened, here’s where I need your help! The foreign worker ant was dragged into the
nest, the ant wasn’t killed nor sprayed with formic acid, it was met with semi-aggression,
and the ants even tried feeding from it. So my question for you is: What should we
do? Should we keep them together and observe what
happens or should we have stuck to the Golden Rule of Ant Keeping of not mixing them, and
should I separate them now, before this escalates and we actually lose ant lives? AC Family, please VOTE under the pinned comment
of this video, by hitting THUMBS UP on either the post ‘KEEP THEM TOGETHER’ or ‘SEPARATE
THEM NOW’. I’ve been monitoring them nonstop, but I’m
actually unsure what to do here, as the results aren’t very conclusive yet. Is this just the equivalent of the typical
‘wrestling’ that happens prior to colonies joining forces, or is this truly a sign that
these ants will not tolerate outsider ants, and will never mix to form a polygynous colony! Let me know in the comments section what you
think the best course of action is, and if the majority of you suggest I separate them
just to be on the safe side, I’ll do that ASAP. If not, I’ll keep them together and see
how things go, in hopes that we can pursue establishing a polygynous carpenter ant colony. The fate of these carpenter ants lies in your
hands. I hope we make the right choice. Together, I believe we will. It’s ant love forever!
