Ant Colony, Day 1

The Harvester Ants have finally arrived in my Mailbox this afternoon. Kinda weird to see living creatures been send through a mail but this is US, many weird thing can be done here...








As expected, the Ants are stored in a plastic vial with 2 little holes for them the breath but not to escape and run around my house when I open the postage. A small piece of Instruction/ Warning serve as a indeminity for the company if I mishandle the ants and got bitten by them... You can't sue the ants and you can't sue the company so HANDLE WITH CARE!







Now the tricky part here is "How do I get the Ants out of the Vial and into their man made colony without any of them escaping before I close the lid? Well, just place the entire vial of Harvester Ants in the fridge for 5 mins. The cold literally slow down their metabolism and you could see them suddenly going slow motion after 5-10mins in the fridge.






Its time to pour this inactive Red Harvester Ants into the Kingdom I have brought for them From today onwards, they shall call me their God and untill death do we part. In any case, I'm sure to outlive them for many generations as ants usually have a really short live of 3 to 6 months. They look kinda disorientated initially when I pour them into the "Aquarium". After a few drop of water into the tank to revitalize them, they started to do what mother nature have program them and their ancestors.... DIG DIG DIG!!!

Two infant tunnel created in their first 2 hours of residency.

Tunnel Entrance on the left

Tunnel Entrance on the right

Progress in tunnelling was pretty slow but I don't need to wait for at less 24 hours before they start working. It was slow tunnelling work thanks largely to the surprisingly social characteristic of Ants... Some work hard on the digging, while some slack in one corner doing nothing but nimbling at each other legs...kinda like having sex. Maybe this ants actually have their own shift work system which explain why some ants are resting while some are working? Time will tell. Stay tune for more pictures from Day 2.