Like fast learning children, my ants know that freedom is up. To this end, they have constructed a glorious roundtop hill that they may climb and reach the edge of the cover. Upon reaching the edge, they may dangle from it as though the price of freedom is the presidential physical fitness award in the ant world. No such luck for these ants. All that dangling ony serves to make them tired and attract the “GIGANTIC EYE OF THE OUTERWORLD”.
My Uncle Milton Ant Farm Club Ant Feeding and Care Schedule tells me precisely when to feed and water my ants but it doesn not tell me where. It was watering day and my instructions tell me to “add a few drops of clear drinking water”. Add it to what?? I just squirted it onto the convenient, easy to carry sand and hoped for the best. Suck, my little ants, suck this water for life!!
Even more sprouts showed up proving my ants are truly worthy of any awards or recognition that might come their way from the farming ant community. They are truly The Masters of Their Universe with their abilities to maintain a hectic city life as well as cultivate food for themselves and future generations. Many of us would do well to look to the ant for the kind of inspiration that is lacking today.
Even with their heart-rendering, inspiration-inspiring activities, I still found my ants to be losing steam in the entertainment value area. They had already built their tunnels and they eat regularly and they even came up with their own dance moves, but the fire seems gone. Granted, I have argued with myself and some of those arguments were compelling “They’re just ants, let them live comfortably and naturally. You can’t learn about ants if they are acting contrary to nature. They aren’t circus ants, they are harvester ants. God, haven’t they given you enough already. “. Eventually i told myself to shut up and I decided to try something. I know that ants are very closely related to bees and wasps. I also know that bees react strongly to increased carbon dioxide as a sign of an intruder breathing in their space (first breathing, then honey stealing and bee squishing and hive smashing, best to stop it early). I wondered if ants would also react to carbon dioxide increases. So I blew in their air holes and and boy do they react. they aren’t as organized as cartoon ants, but they jump to attention immediately and they all run in circles tapping each other on the head and searching for their intruder.