In ant keeping, there are a few basic golden
rules of ethics, that most ant keepers follow. First, don't keep non-local ants. Doing so endangers your ecosystem and the
ants themselves. Second, pre-kill your prey insects. It's cruel and can be dangerous to your ants
to feed live prey. And finally, we ant keepers know to never,
ever mix your colonies together. This would cause an ant war. Today, I broke this last rule, because I had
heard that Yellow Crazy Ants can fuse colonies. In fact, the Golden Empire today, as we saw
in a past video, is the result of two colonies that joined forces. This is why when I received this new 5 queen
colony of yellow crazy ants, it never occurred to me that the ants would end up going to
war! AC Family, sit tight because today, we will
see what can happen when the basic rules of ant keeping are broken! Will there be mass death from an ant war,
or will the ants join forces? AC Family, Put on your strongest of armour
and carry your most solid sheilds, as we watch an epic battle unfold before our very eyes! It's every ant keeper's nightmare, and delight
to all of those who have asked me to war my ant colonies. You won't want to miss all the ant action
ahead so keep on watching until the end. A warning to all ant keepers out there not
to try this with your ants at home. This episode was not planned the way it turned
out, but what happened will surely shock you! Gather round AC Family, and let's learn about
the amazing ways of ant colony fusion and ant war in another action-packed epsiode where
we marvel at the amazing world of ants, here on the AntsCanada Ant Channel. Please subscribe to my videos! You won't regret entering this ant universe! Hit that bell icon, too, to join the AC notification
squad. Enjoy! So before the ant lovers of the world start
attacking me, here's my defense. Someone offered me this large Yellow Crazy
Ant colony through the GAN Project, and I at first was hestitant to take them. The Golden Empire was still recovering from
their mite infestation, and I was happy with their growth in size since I first got them. But then, I went back to what our mite biologist
told us about what causes mites to enter their phoretic state, meaning the life stage where
they go from beneficial mites that eat the ants' garbage, to hitchhikers where they attach
themselves to the ants' bodies. The mite biologist had said that one of the
causes of mite phoresis is if the ants were already suffering from a health condition,
if the ants' health was somehow compromised in the first place. So, in light of this, I also knew that the
larger an ant colony is, the greater chance of success they have at thriving because with
more workers, it means they can acquire more food for the colony, keep the nest cleaner
and better maintained, have babies better fed and protected, and generally carry out
all the necessary tasks required for a healthy colony. This is how I came to decide that, yes, perhaps
adding this large 5 queen colony of healthy ants to our Golden Empire, a 3 queen colony,
might prove beneficial at speeding up the riddance of our ants' phoretic mites. Tonight, I was going to break our third golden
rule of ant keeping ethics. I did it before with this colony, and other
than one of the queens retaliating for a bit, it was fine. I assumed this induced colony fusion now would
alos prove to be problem-free. But little did I know, I was in for a shocking
surprise. Night fell, and the new colony was in place. If you've been AC family for awhile now, you
know the drill. We'll be using light and heat to move our
new ants into the Hacienda Del Dorado, the lush kingdom of our Golden Empire. The tube which was to be the bridge into the
Hacienda Del Dorado was covered with baby powder on one end to keep the ants inside
the terrarium from crawling out. I unwrapped the container to reveal the new
foreign 5 queen colony. woah look at all those ants. They were restless in their container. I was told the colony was quite agitated these
past few days, perhaps because they were tired of living in their plastic container. This move was going to be easy. So my plan was to disconnect this tube which
connects the main nest container to their outworld, and connect this tube leading to
the Hacienda Del Dorado to this hole. As for the ants in the outworld, I would dump
them directly into the Hacienda Del Dorado afterward. I would then place the bright light over their
current container to encourage them to move out. Here we go, AC Family. It was time. Time to mix these two yellow crazy ants together. Here we go! The ants moved in and quickly started carrying
brood out of the container and into the tubes. All seemed to be going as planned. The very first worker entered the Hacienda
Del Dorado without problems. It was so fast that I hadn't seen where it
went. I assumed it had found the nest under the
driftwood where the Golden Empire were nested. Without thinking anything wrong would happen,
I allowed my cameras to run for two hours, and left them to join forces. 2 hours later, I came back to a horrific sight! The new colony had moved completely into the
Hacienda Del Dorado, but something didn't look right. The ants seemed to be clumping! What is happening here. With a closer look, I was shocked. To my surprise, the Golden Empire and this
new 5 queen colony had engaged in an epic ant war! Workers were locked together, biting legs,
mandibles locked, many ants clearly in agony! Oh no! What had I done?! The Golden Empire was in danger and it pained
me to know that I had caused this ant war. I wasn't sure which colony would end up winning,
but I knew this definitely would end in massive ant blood shed. There was nothing I could do but watch in
horror, as our beloved Golden Empire fought against these newly introduced enemies! May Gold Help the Golden Empire! The next morning. Everything was still. I looked around the Hacienda Del Dorado. There weren't very many workers in sight. The war had ended. Who won? How many casualties were there. With a heavy heart, I surveilled the Golden
Empire's kingdom. To my surprise, I could not find any dead
ants anywhere. What? Where did all the ants go? Last night the armies were fighting and I
was sure I was going to have to deal with piles of dead ants in the morning... but no. No dead ants. I placed a dead cockroach inside to attempt
to draw the ants out from wherever they were hiding. Suddenly, it was like a ray of hope! In just a few short minutes, ants came rushing
out from under the driftwood. And what made me smile, was that the ants
that came running out were our ants from the Golden Empire still carrying their phoretic
mites, as well as new, mite-free ants, assumingly from the newly introduced ant colony from
last night. Wow! The colonies had ultimately joined forces. What could have happened? Did they fight for awhile and then just decide,
hey guys. Let's settle our differences and just become
one big happy family, how about it? Whatever conspired overnight, I for one was
relieved. Can you imagine what was going through my
mind overnight, thinking about how hard it would have been to tell you guys the Golden
Empire died because of a colony introduction, the breaking of a basic ant keeping Golden
Rule? Anyway, so the Golden Empire now officially
has 8 queens and a larger worker force now. Also, there are many ants that are now mite-free. Let's hope this greater worker force helps
get rid of these phoretic mites once and for all. Another very cool thing I spotted in the Hacienda
Del Dorado was this! The bonzai trees were apparently carrying
their own set of parasites! But in this case, it excited me because these
little insects were aphids! It was my dream to find a way to properly
and successfully house a colony of aphids because as some of you may know, some species
of ants love to tend aphids and other similar plant insects and milk them of their sweet
secretions called honeydew! And yellow crazy ants are one of those species
known to perform these aphid-tending behaviours! Yes! Can you imagine the Golden Empire farming
their own sugar source all inside the Hacienda Del Dorado? So far, it seemed the Golden Empire wasn't
tending them yet, but I think I did catch what I thought were workers licking the leaves. Perhaps one day the workers will discover
that they can farm honeydew from the small aphids feeding from the bonzai trees! Isn't that cool, AC Fam? I will be sure to keep you guys updated on
this, and the overall progress of the Golden Empire. Thank you for watching another episode of
the AntsCanada Ant Channel. It's been quite the journey for this Golden
Empire, and still the sauga continues on, and we the AC Family will be here to support
and watch over them every step of the way, won't we? Because, it's ant love forever. Alright! That was close. right guys?! So what do you think happened here? Why would the two ant colonies be going to
war in the beginning, and then decide to join forces? Let me know your take of this story in the
comments section! AC Inner Colony, I have placed a hidden cookie
for you here if you would just like to watch extended play footage of the ants in this
video without all the commentary. And of course, we have the AC Question of
the Week. Last week we asked:' Why did this colony reject our first cockroach? Congratulations to Hexagon 21! who correctly
answered: They ignored the cockroach 'cause it was too
big of a prey item. Congratulations Hexagon 21 you just won a
free ebook handbook from our shop! For this week's AC Question of the Week we
ask: What is mite phoresis? Leave your answer in the comments section
and you could win a free tshirt from our shop! Please subscribe to this channel so you don't
miss a single episode. We upload a brand new ant video every saturday
at 8AM EST. It's ant love forever!
You've never heard of an ant farm?
that guys a badass tho
this was fucking awesome. never knew ants were so interesting!
But, beekeepers reap sweet sweet honey!
I fucking LOVE ants. I'd love to maintain an ant colony.