Today I surprised my unsuspecting fire ant
colony with a new ant farm and their reaction was hilarious! This is the Phoenix Empire, my 4 month old
fire ant colony that weâve watched grow on this channel from just a single queen fire
ant. You, the viewers, have helped me make decisions
for them via home voting, including choosing and naming every structural segment of their
setup, the City of Ashes. Now guys, last week you all voted for a new
nest extension to their continually expanding territories, and today we get to see the fire
ants we love, react to the new piece of real estate you guys chose. Will they love it, or will they hate it? Time to find out! Welcome to the AntsCanada ant channel! Please SUBSCRIBE to the channel and hit the
BELL icon! Welcome to the AC Family. Enjoy! I think giving our fire ants their new home
and watching their full reaction was the first time these ants really gave me a belly laugh,
which has been so needed. I think you guys will find it quite funny,
too, so do keep on watching until the end. Our ants are just so cute, guys! Ok so, I was about to give the fire ants their
new home when suddenly, peeking into Hellâs Kitchen, the colonyâs hunting and feeding
grounds, I spotted the fire ants doing this! Have a look! Thatâs quite the busy ant trail! Where does it lead? This massive dead Madagascar hissing cockroach. It came from my roach farm, from which every
morning, I pick out deceased roaches that have died overnight from old age, to feed
to the Phoenix Empire. And here they were feasting eagerly on this
massive carcass of meat. Yes, guys, our fire ants are now big enough
to handle daily servings of adult hissing cockroaches. Can you believe it? Hereâs another sign that the colony is exploding
in population now. Theyâre starting to get smarter, and are
looking for weaknesses in our setup in hopes to escape. Theyâve also been drinking a tonne of sugar
water and freshwater, sure signs of the current explosive population size of the colony now. Oh, boy! I remember when my last fire ant colony reached
this stage, and guys, I believe things will get more and more intense caring for these
fire ants from here on in! So as you can see, itâs very timely that
weâll be adding a new living area for the Phoenix Empire today, as theyâre growing
like crazy now, and arenât the same budding colony we knew just a few weeks ago. We even saw them creating a makeshift nest
in a random wood hollow in Hellâs Kitchen in last weekâs episode, which means their
current nest in the Fire Fortress is no longer enough living space! So, letâs give the ants the new space they
need right now! Here we go! AC Family, behold the City of Ashes, the full
royal territories of the Phoenix Empire, which is about to get bigger. Now before adding the new nest space, the
first thing I needed to do was determine the best place to attach the nest. For those of you at home who plan on keeping
ants, where you attach new nests makes all the difference in the world. Itâs time for some Urban Ant Planning! Now last week we saw the ants moving out their
brood through this tube and into a hole here in the driftwood in Hellâs Kitchen. So for me, the best place to attach this new
nest was here, because the ants were already moving brood through this tube. Attaching the new nest to the other tube on
the other side would not be an ideal spot because the ants currently leave the nest
through this tube to enter the Test Tube portal which takes them to either their sugar water
source or Hellâs Kitchen to eat, so adding a nest here probably wouldnât be as great
a spot as this other tube where ants carrying brood are already passing. The chances of the ants coming up with the
great idea to turn the new home we give them into their new satellite nest are greater
if we attach it here. And so guys, behold the Phoenix Empireâs
new nest, which you all voted for last week to give the colony! An AC Hybrid Nest Mini from AntsCanada.com. Itâs a great choice of nest for an ant colony,
and I love that we can actually see everything within it. Iâm pretty excited to see how the fire ants
would like it. Iâve used Elmerâs school glue to glue
the glass down onto the nest. Whatâs cool about this ant farm is that
part of the floor area has these microholes for humidity, something an ant nest must have. But before we introduce this ant farm to the
ants thereâs one quick thing we need to do. I had to fill up the hydration chamber at
the bottom with hydration medium, and today Iâll be using moist coco fibre which I find
works really well, as it doesnât mold easily and is very water absorbent. Once the coco fibre was all in, all was set! And now for the part weâve all been waiting
for. Time to attach the nest to the City of Ashes. Now here was the tricky part. Cutting this busy tube slash ant highway at
just the right time to minimize escapes was for sure gunna be a challenge. Here we go, guys! Wish me luck! Cutting the tube, and blocking both open ends
with cotton as quickly as possible. Done! Ants coming from the outworld expecting to
get home, some with mandibles full of roach meat, hit the sudden dead end and had no choice
but to make a u-turn to take the other longer route home. Ants from the other side, coming from the
nest hoping to get into Hellâs Kitchen also were perplexed by the sudden dead end! Thank goodness there were only a couple escaped
ants, which I scooped up with a cotton ball and tapped into Hellâs Kitchen to reunite
with the colony. Alright and now the next step was to quickly
remove this cotton stopper and attach the tube to the Hybrid Nest. Here we go! Removing the cotton and quickly attaching
the nest. Now you would expect a tonne of ants to come
rushing in right away, but nope. None! It took a few seconds before one ant finally
appeared to explore. Youâll see in a bit why there werenât
many ants coming in from this end. But meanwhile, letâs attach the other tube. Lots of ants here! Alright, and in they go. Now several ants were seen entering the nest
right away, eagerly exploring this cool new space, unlike the other side, where a select
few ants came in but quickly made u-turns back the other way. And AC Family, hereâs why that is! Ants coming in from the nest are in âexploratory
modeâ. Remember theyâre leaving the nest to enter
Hellâs Kitchen where theyâre expecting to look for food, while on the other end,
ants are in âreturning homeâ mode, and are simply expecting to follow the pheromonal
trail left by previous ants which direct the ants to where home actually is. Pheromones laid on the ground are kinda like
the antsâ Waze app, and help direct ants where to go. So as you can imagine their ant Waze told
them to go into the tube in order to get home, but suddenly once they reached the fresh Hybrid
Nest, devoid of any pheromones, it was like Waze had told them they were in the wrong
spot and so they made hard u-turns back the other way in search of the pheromone trail
that leads home. We were confusing the ants big time, and watching
the ant confusion of it all made me laugh. We were totally messing up their system by
doing this. But donât worry, all it will takes is ants
coming in from this exploratory end meeting up with ants from the other end hoping to
get home, for the ants to reestablish a new pheromone trail. Eventually, this successful route to and from
home will be reinforced with pheromones and the ants will begin trailing again through
here, but this definitely takes some time to occur. The two parties of ants kinda need to meet
each other by accident a few times for them to catch on. There were definitely times I was cheering
them on, frustrated for the two parties to meet! The ants coming in from Hellâs kitchen kept
u-turning, and ants coming in from the nest were busy exploring! Meanwhile, I noticed ants had resolved to
take the long way back home. Haha! Poor ants! Hereâs a quick time lapse to watch the ants
slowly learn that passing through the Hybrid Nest actually leads home, via the reinforcement
of the antsâ pheromonal trail. Finally! Yay! And now that I knew the ants had found each
other and were establishing a new pheromonal trail, I covered up the nest and resolved
to come back in an hour to check up on them. Lifting the lid an hour later, I saw this! Wow! Not only was there a clear trail of ants now,
but the ants had started to bring in grains of sand from Hellâs Kitchen! This was great news as it meant the ants have
begun to customize the living space to make it more âhomeyâ. The ants have officially made the Hybrid Nest,
Phoenix Empire territory. I think it wouldnât be long before the ants
call this home. A few days later, I peeked into the nest,
and this is what I saw. OK, so they havenât moved in yet, but theyâve
further customized the interior of the Hybrid Nest to make it their own. Even if they havenât moved in here yet,
I knew it was only a matter of time before they would. Many ants like fire ants, despite having a
love for digging, will also be opportunistic in nesting behaviour, and will happily occupy
a cavity of ideal living space, as we saw when the ants decided to move into that driftwood
hole last week. But, itâs a smart move to not move into
a new space right away, particularly one that they hadnât excavated and made themselves. Imagine if the ants quickly mobilized and
started moving in the brood and the queen to a new cavity, which also happened to be
the home of some ant-eating frog or other predator? That would be disastrous and a lethal move
for the colony. Most ants need to make sure a space is safe,
grow familiar with it, and customize it perfectly before they decide to make the move, and I
believe that is what is going on here. Iâll be sure to continue filming our Phoenix
Empire over the next few days and update you as soon as they move in. Something tells me itâll be within the week. I wanna thank you guys for always being there
to support these ants, and raising them together with me. I appreciate you all for being there every
step of the way. Iâll see you all again next week for another
episode of the AntsCanada ant channel. Itâs ant love forever! AC Family, did you enjoy todayâs episode? Thereâs lots ahead for our ants and other
creatures in our Antiverse, so if you havenât yet, do SMASH that SUBSCRIBE button and BELL
ICON now, and hit ALL so you get notified at every upload. Also donât forget to hit the LIKE button
every single time including now. It would really mean a lot to me, guys. Thank you! AC Inner Colony, I have left a hidden cookie
for you here, if you would like to watch some extended play footage of the ants reacting
to their new Hybrid Nest Mini ant farm. And guys, did you know that itâs anting
season in the Northern Hemisphere, and you donât even need to leave your home to start
an ant colony?! You can catch pregnant queen ants from the
safety of your own backyard, balcony, or open window starting this month! Be sure to visit AntsCanada.com for all your
ant keeping and collecting gear shipped to you in a special package from our ant-loving
facility in the USA, so you can get the most out of your ant keeping experience. We ship worldwide and also offer full email
support if you need our help! Visit AntsCanada.com today. And now itâs time for the AC Question of
the Week. Last week, we asked: How did we know our basil plants were truly
benefiting from the presence of our springtails and soil creatures? Congratulations to E Azizy who answered: The basil sprouts are taller than those in
the garden. Congratulations E Azizy, you just won a free
Ultimate Ant Keeping handbook from our shop! In this weekâs AC Question of the Week we
ask: What were one of the several signs that the
Phoenix Empire was exploding greatly in population? Leave your answer in the comments section
and you could also win a free ebook handbook from our shop! Hope you could 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. Itâs ant love forever!
Phoenix empire should be renamed to the spicy boys