It’s always sad losing a pet, and for us
ant keepers, when we lose ant colonies, especially ones we’ve had for years, it’s truly a
sad event. Today, I announce the loss of one of the greatest
O.G. ant colonies of this channel, but there’s something else I have to share. Welcome, everyone, to the AntsCanada ant channel. Please SUBSCRIBE to my channel and hit the
BELL icon. Welcome to the AC Family! Enjoy! Well, for those of you who’ve been following
this channel for awhile, the title of this video may have come as a shock to you, but
it’s true. All the queens of the original Golden Empire,
my long time supercolony of yellow crazy ants have died, but, I do have some good news,
which I’ll get into in just a moment. I also will be needing all of your help with
making a very big decision, so get your voting fingers ready, guys, and stay tuned for the
important voting session taking place later in this video. For those of you who are new, the Golden Empire
is one of three O.G. ant colonies on this channel, O.G.’s because for me, they were
the first star ant colonies featured on this channel at the time when we, the AC Family,
really grew and hit our first million subscribers. The first OG ant colony was the Fire Nation,
our former fire ant colony, whose queen’s death anniversary will be this November (Rest
in Peace Fire Nation & Queen Solis). You may know the Fire Nation from our ‘My
Fire Ants’ Are Planning an Escape Video’ or ‘Fire Ants Devouring a cockroach While
Giving Birth’ video. The second OG ant colony is the Dark Knights,
our black crazy ant supercolony, who are still alive and well, and technically will continue
to survive forever, as these ants don’t require traditional nuptial flights like regular
ants, and queens and males can inbreed within the nest without genetically inbreeding, a
biological DNA hack these black crazy ants have up their sleeves, so I expect them to
never reach their life’s end anytime soon. However, the Golden Empire, as many of you
may know, has had a long and turbulent history. So long, I prefer to not get into all the
details now, but essentially, the colony was raised in an AC Setup, then moved to their
first terrarium we called the Hacienda Del Dorado, but one day out of nowhere the colony
got infected by vampiric, blood-sucking mites, which reduced the huge supercolony with multiple
queens to a weakened colony of a few hundreds. I managed to isolate a portion of the survivors
in quarantine, and treated their vampiric mites with predatory mites harvested from
rhino beetles of all places! I know, random! And since then over the course of over a year
or so, I’ve been trying to get the colony to grow back to their huge numbers, and though
they grew a little bit over time, for some reason they weren’t reaching the same numbers
they used to be at. Then finally, the queens began to disappear
one by one starting about a month ago, with the last remaining queen of the colony passing
away just last week, leaving a couple hundred workers to live out the rest of their lives
without a queen or brood to care for. I’m so sorry, AC Family, I tried everything
I could, but I do think the mite plague really weakened the remaining Golden Empire queens,
and/or the queens had finally approached the end of their own lifespans, and simply weren’t
the prolific egg-laying machines they used to be during the Golden Empire’s glory years. But now AC Family, for the good news. When I noticed the queens starting to disappear
a month ago, I struggled to determine when the right time to tell you guys was. In the end, there were two reasons that I
chose to wait until now to make the announcement of the Golden Empire’s passing. First, I didn’t want to cast a shadow on
all the joy we were sharing together over our Phoenix Empire and their Ember Islands
floating mountains paludarium, as that was the Phoenix Empire’s shining moment in Antiverse
history. But the other bigger reason was, I wanted
to make sure the Golden Empire’s legacy wasn’t fully over, and with the bad news
of their passing, I felt we needed a silver lining, or rather a golden lining. AC Family, I’m happy to announce that with
the remaining 200 or so workers, I did what I’ve done a couple times in the past with
the Golden Empire: Colony fusion! I was able to obtain another yellow crazy
ant colony, and fused them with the remaining workers of the Golden Empire, instead of just
allowing the remaining 200 or so Golden Empire workers to simply die in their ant farm without
purpose. The fusion was successful, but as you’ve
seen in past videos, there’s a bit of a temporary squabble, a mini ‘Ant War’ if
you will, that happens when the two unrelated yellow crazy ant colonies meet, before the
two sides call it a truce and they start acting like one big supercolony. And indeed, the new yellow crazy ant colony
I introduced ended up forcefully taking our 200 or so Golden Empire workers hostage, and
later recruited them into their own supercolony. And so, guys, I’m super excited for you
to meet them all now. AC Family, behold, the Golden Empire 2.0,
or technically 4.0, but you guys know what I mean. The entire supercolony is living within this
ant farm setup from antscanada.com. Let’s have a look first at their large ac
Ant Tower. You guys will love this! As you can see there are several workers running
around the surface, busy with nest construction and various other activities. I love seeing how active they are. Pretty sure these ants are from the new batch. But if you look carefully, there’s something
else here that you might find interesting! There! See that? That my friends, is an Ant Cricket, belonging
to family Myrmecophilidae, meaning ant-loving crickets. This species is Myrmecophilus albicinctus,
which amazingly are found exclusively in nests of yellow crazy ants. It’s pretty amazing! They must’ve come in with the new batch,
and yes, I say ‘they’, as you’ll be seeing many more of them when we check out
the colony’s mothernest in a little bit. These wingless, non-chirping crickets, are
100% dependent on the yellow crazy ants they live with for their survival. In other words, if I were to separate this
little guy from these ants, it would die, as it wouldn’t be able to even feed on its
own. Get this, guys! These cute ant crickets take on the colony’s
scent and incredibly, the ants actually treat it like part of the colony, even feeding the
crickets through trophallaxis, mouth to mouth, as the ants would with each other! Isn’t that crazy? They are truly beloved Golden Empire pets,
that I was pleasantly surprised to see after the recent colony fusion. OK moving on now to their AC Outworld. Lots of activity happening here. You’ll see many workers scurrying about. This is where I’ve been feeding them, of
course, and the colony has been eating lots. Here you’ll see them feasting on a roach
and over there, you’ll see their sweet jelly cup, which they love. But, guys check this out! Also in this outworld are alates! See her! This is a virgin queen ant, known as a queen
alate. She’s born with wings and is simply waiting
around for the colony’s nuptial flight to happen when she can fly away, mate and start
a yellow crazy ant colony of her own. Due to her light colouration, it looks like
this queen just recently emerged from her pupa. She’ll be much darker in colour in a couple
days. Alates usually don’t emerge from the mothernest,
but it looks like she just wanted to check out our ac Outworld here. Also in the colony are these male alates,
which look a lot smaller and more wasp-like in appearance. They’re also waiting for nuptial flight
so they can mate with queen alates in the air before dying, as mating is sadly their
only purpose in the ant world. Enjoy your time, fellas! So, we’ve seen the ants in the Ant Tower
and the Outworld, an ant cricket, and some alates, so now it’s time to see the mothernest
in their ac Hybrid Nest! Opening the nest, and behold, our newly revitalized
Golden Empire. First, look at the size of those massive queen
alate cocoons! This is actually the first time I’ve ever
seen yellow crazy ant alate cocoons! The new batch came in with a lot of these
alate cocoons and they’re just massive! Pretty cool right? There you’ll see some regular brood piles
on the right. There’s a male alate running around! Check out all of those eggs and young larvae
being carried by workers! I just love checking out all these nursemaid
workers, acting as babysitters of clutches of brood. Within their loving mandibles are cradled
the future generation of Golden Empire ants. There’s even more brood! Oop, and there’s one of the queens. It also looks like this is where they've made
their temporary graveyard. Interesting that these ants keep their dead
inside the nest, also a good tactic so they remain discreet from outside predators. And there’s another queen alate. This here seems to be the site of a lot of
trophallaxis going on, see the ants kissing? And if you look carefully, there! Another ant cricket! There are many ant crickets in this mothernest! Isn’t it amazing how they roam freely unharmed,
treated simply like one of the ants? There’s another egg laying queen, and a
springtail waiting to eat up the colony’s poop and garbage, and more brood! Here is one of the most beautiful sights! Check out this entourage of workers surrounding
this queen. They keep her clean, well fed, protected,
and judging from the worker latching on to her leg, in place! In the Golden Empire, I believe the workers
call the shots as to where the queens are allowed to be, I’m assuming for their own
good. It’s a common misconception that queen ants
have power and make decisions for a colony, but the reality is, though queen ants are
indeed important members of an ant colony, queen ants actually don’t have much power. In the world of ants, decisions are generally
made collectively as a colony, and not by any one individual in power. Interesting, right? From what I’ve counted, this upgraded, revitalized
Golden Empire supercolony has around 20 or so egg-laying queen ants (I use the term ‘supercolony’
on this channel, by the way, when referring to a colony with many queen ants). One thing I’ve been wondering regarding
all these alates, though is if yellow crazy ants are like black crazy ants, in that they
can mate with their own within the nest, without an actual nuptial flight. The old Golden Empire, to the best of my knowledge,
never actually got to the full-blown alate production stage, so this situation is quite
new for me. Imagine if this supercolony could self-perpetuate
and live forever, too, assuming we don’t have any sudden catastrophes like a mite plague
or something. We’ll see, and keep our fingers crossed. Now, AC Family, we’ve finally come to the
part of the video where I’ll need your help! It’s time for us to be like the ants, and
collectively make a big decision for this colony. At the start of the video I mentioned I’ll
be needing your votes on something important, and it’s this: I’ve been wondering, do
you guys feel we should keep the name “Golden Empire” for these ants, as some of these
ants here are indeed part of the original colony, and even the original colony was colony
fused twice in their past, yet they still retained their name Golden Empire? Let me know your thoughts, AC Council. Under the pinned comment of this video, please
hit the THUMBS UP on the post indicating ‘GOLDEN EMPIRE’, if you feel these ants should keep
their name, or hit the THUMBS UP on the post indicating ‘NEW NAME’, if you feel the
colony needs a new name. Feel free to leave your reasons as to why
you chose the option you did, so we can all have a look and debate over this. If the colony takes on a new name, it will
lose its official flag which is only given to outstanding colonies that have stood the
test of time and made considerable contributions to the Antiverse, and won’t be considered
the same OG colony. We’ll be treating it like a brand new colony
on the channel, with its own brand new playlist, as well. So I guess the bigger question is: when you
look at these ants, does it feel like the soul of the Golden Empire exists here among
them, or do they feel like a totally different colony to you? Now, if you’re one of the people who feels
like this colony should have a new name, do leave your new name suggestions in the comments,
and the AC Senate and I will review them and choose a top five for all of us to vote on
in a future video. Feel free to also THUMBS UP any name suggestions
you see and like that others post, so they get bumped up where I can see them! Personally, I’m ok with either option. It would be cool for these ants to keep their
OG status and official flag, still calling them the Golden Empire, but it could also
be cool giving the colony a totally new name, seeing as this can technically be seen as
a fresh start, and perhaps some of you newcomers might like to know that you’ve been following
this newly revived colony from their quote-unquote “start”. And while you’re at it, feel free to also
leave name suggestions for the ant crickets, too. I think they deserve some really cool names,
as well, as they are a first on this channel, and are quite amazing in their own right. So with lots of brood on the way, many egg-laying
queens expanding the colony, even a generation of alates on the way, and cohabiting nest
mates, it looks like the future of the Golden Empire, or whatever you guys choose to call
them, is bright! And speaking of bright, it seems there’s
a commotion starting due to my bright camera lights. Yup! Looks like the colony is starting to move
the brood out into the outworld. Let’s close the nest for now and give them
the darkness they love. The future of this yellow crazy ant colony
is in your hands, and I can’t wait to see what lies ahead for these yellow crazy ants. Alright, and now to talk about their future
terrarium. AC Family, did you enjoy today’s episode? I can’t wait to go over my ideas for the
future paludarium home for these yellow crazy ants, and of course you all will be voting,
just as we did together for the Phoenix Empire’s Ember Islands. I find we’re better decision makers as a
group, wouldn’t you say? If you have any design ideas on what their
future home should be, do let me know in the comments, but otherwise, yellow crazy ant
home building and voting starts next week, so if you haven’t yet, do SMASH that SUBSCRIBE
button and BELL ICON now, and hit ALL so you get notified at every upload. Also don’t 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 see extended play footage of the new yellow crazy ants,
as well as a certain surprise, so do check it out! And guys, did you know that it’s anting
season in the Northern Hemisphere, and you don’t 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! We also have a helpful forum and ant colony
trading marketplace on the site. Visit AntsCanada.com today. And now it’s time for the AC Question of
the Week. Last week, we asked: What is giving our shrimp their new colour? Congratulations to • Finley • who answered: Their diet! Their color depends on the
things they eat, so now they are brown. Congratulations • Finley •, you just won
a free Ultimate Ant Keeping Handbook from our shop! In this week’s AC Question of the Week we
ask: What makes ant crickets different
from regular crickets? Leave your answer in the comments section
and you could also win a free Ultimate Ant Keeping 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. It’s ant love forever!
