Man, there was once a time where I told myself that if ever this channel were to receive
this inconcievable milestone award, I would treasure it, hang it on a wall and keep it
forever in mint condition to admire as a trophy piece.
The Youtube Gold Play button awarded to Youtube channels reaching 1 million subscribers finally
arrived.
But then, I told myself...
Imagine if I were to turn my Gold Play Button into an antfarm...
No, that's just crazy.
I would never do that!
Ever!
Well, this week 'never' happened, and you won't believe what I did in the name of ant
love!
AC Family, I pulled the Golden stunt.
Yes, today I hold my breath, and hand over my Youtube Gold Play Button to the real stars
of this channel, the ants.
Find out which of our five colonies we move in, how we customize it for them, and how
they ultimately reacted to the inside of the Gold Play Button, on this eye-opening, celebratory
episode of the AntsCanada Ant Channel.
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Welcome to the AC Family.
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Just watch this channel.
Enjoy.
So last month I was happy to receive in the mail our Youtube Gold Play Button for reaching
over 1 million subscribers earlier this year.
It was just so moving to unbox this amazing award.
By the way, whether you're old or new AC Family, please hit that like button if you enjoy our
videos.
Thank you so much.
This channel and award is yours, and we all earned this together, AC Family!
So, opening the box, it included a note from Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of Youtube encouraging
us to continue making entertaining videos.
Very cool.
Lifting this piece of foam, wow!
AC Family, here it is.
The fabled Youtube Gold Play Button.
It was just magical and huge!
Now, back when reaching a million subscribers was just a fantasy, I toyed with the idea
of turning my Gold Play Button into an ant farm for an ant colony.
The idea of course was just crazy.
I would have needed to customize it to make it habitable for the ants, I needed to drill
holes into it, I wouldn't even know how to open the thing, and overall I would have essentially
needed to destroy the piece.
But seeing the Gold Play Button now fresh out of the box, I said no way would I ever
destroy this thing.
It was going up on a wall.
But something interesting and a bit unbelievable happened.
A couple days after, I received another box from Youtube.
What?
I opened it, and sure enough it was a second Gold Play Button!
They sent me two!
How could this be?
Do any of you guys know if other Youtubers receive two Gold Play Buttons?
Could this be some freak mistake?
Perhaps Youtube telling me they want me to make an ant farm?
Whatever it was, I wasn't going to give it back.
And so, AC Family!
I wasn't going to need two Gold Play Buttons!
I had decided.
I was going to turn this second Gold Play Button into an ant farm.
Here we go!
The first step was to decide which of the ant colonies would be moving in.
Who was going to be getting this Gold Play Button ant farm?
To me, there were only 3 logical options:
First, the Fire Nation.
Our long time, ferocious fire ant colony who in essence became the first super stars of
the channel, when their video "My Ants Are Planning an Escape" went completely viral,
followed by another video "Cockroach Giving Birth While Being Devoured by Fire Ants",
which have a combined viewership of 31 million views on Youtube.
I felt they surely deserved to be one of the candidates to inhabit this Gold Play Button.
Next, we have the Dark Knights, our black crazy ant colony, also a senior colony of
the channel, having started around the same time as our Fire Nation.
They've been a good colony, contrasting our ravenous Fire Nation, always easy-to-care
for, predictable, non-aggressive, and what was super convenient about the Dark Knights
was that if I were to move them into the Gold Play Button, I could simply hang the Gold
Play Button on the same wall as my other Silver Play Buttons and easily connect the tubes
of their two story setup which pass that area of my place.
And next, we have the Golden Empire, our yellow crazy ant colony that came a bit after the
Fire Nation and the Dark Knights, but garnered a big fan base of ant lovers fast, as we helped
them overcome their biggest survival challenge, beating a plague of parasitic mites.
They were a good candidate because with their booming population and limited only to the
Hacienda Del Dorado terrarium, they needed the new space badly.
In a previous video we also noticed that they needed change in routine.
Now, for those fans of our other ant colonies, we couldn't move in the Titans, our Marauder
ant colony because they were in a sensitive time at the moment, and we also couldn't do
the Tomb Raiders, our Pharaoh Ants, because they were a new colony under quarantine, dealing
with their own crisis at the moment.
By the way, if you're following that story AC Family I promise to update you about their
situation next week.
So, I had to decide, and of course I went to consult the AC Council, so on our brand
new Youtube community tab which we just got this week, I asked you which of the three
colonies you wanted to see move in to this Gold Play Button ant farm.
You casted your votes, and AC Family, you chose the Golden Empire based on over 35,000
votes.
It seemed the general reasoning was "Golden Empire for the Gold Play Button".
Made sense.
So now that we knew who would be moving in, it was time to customize the Gold Play Button
to make it more habitable for the Golden Empire.
After examining the structure of the framework, I discovered that it was actually quite easy
to open up from the back.
I opened it up and went straight to work.
Using an old aquarium background I had laying around, as well as natural decor from our
AC Biome Kits, I began to cut, glue, and arrange.
It took a lot of careful planning and designing.
I didn't really know what I was doing, and I was completely improvising along the way,
but I was determined to make this new territory beautiful and homey for our ants.
And so AC Family, after hours of breaking away at faux rock and arranging of decor,
I am pleased to present to you "Golden Rock", the soon-to-be new stomping grounds of our
Golden Empire.
Do you like it?
What do you guys think?
Let me show you around.
Golden Rock was inspired by the natural terrain in which I have seen yellow crazy ants in
the wild.
It is a simulated volcanic rock escarpment complete with lichens, mosses, tropical foliage,
sticks, and crevices
and presented at the center of Golden Rock's cliff face, the Youtube Gold Play Button,
shining like a beautifully polished stone adorning the territories.
Now this setup was designed to be dry and soiless and I didn't want to add digging medium
because the structure wasn't designed to hold moisture.
You see the back is made of painted plywood, which could rot if moist soil was added, and
I didn't want to paint the entire thing with water sealant, in fear of toxic materials
killing the ants.
Also this setup would no longer be opened after being sealed so dry meant cleaner interior
and easier maintenance.
So the question we needed to answer now was "What would make Golden Rock interesting for
our ants?"
Why would the ants want to come here?
If we just connected the colony to this Gold Play Button as is, they might wander a bit
but get bored and find it dead space for the colony.
So, AC Family, my solution?
Four entrances drilled directly into the plastic plated plywood framing, and polytubing inserted
into them.
One of these entrances would be the official entrance to the territories, and the others,
to accomodate test tubes with some goodies for the ants to discover.
On one side I attached a test tube of some dry fish food and on the other, some blue-dyed
honey.
So now the Golden Empire had a reason to come to Golden Rock.
Golden Rock would from now on be a hub for food collection.
And now, the moment we've all been waiting for.
The moment of truth.
It was time to move our Golden Empire, our booming colony of yellow crazy ants into their
new Youtube Gold Play Button territories we call Golden Rock.
Here we go, my plan was we needed a way to safely connect the Hacienda Del Dorado to
Golden Rock, but there way no way I was going to drill a hole through this glass.
It is certainly possible to drill holes throug aquarium glass with special drill bits but,
in all my experience working with glass and creating ant farms, there are a million and
one ways to screw it up and completely crack and ruin the glass, and I wasn't willing to
take that risk today, lest the Golden Empire is suddenly given the chance to move into
my whole place!
And so here is my hack for those who need to connect their ant colonies in aquariums
to another living area.
First, I take a plastic water bottle and cut it here, to create a sort of funnel.
Then I take some baby powder and mix it with rubbing alcohol until the mixture is uniform,
then completely smother the inside of the funnel, as well as the outside with this mixture.
It dries in about 10 minutes and becomes super slippery for the ants.
The idea was to situate this funnel at the top of terrarium using a barbeque skewer and
then fasten the tube leading out of the terrarium through this slippery funnel.
This way the ants could travel through the tube but not climb out of the terrarium by
climbing the outside of the tube.
So here we go, guys are you ready?
It was time to see if our Golden Empire would like these new lands we are introducing to
them.
1 - 2 -3.
I placed the tube into our slippery funnel then stuffed all spaced between with cotton.
I placed the tube into the ficus foliage for the ants to discover.
The other end of this tube was attached to this entrance of Golden Rock.
The ants instantly began to climb the tube, but hadn't yet thought of climbing through
it.
As planned the ants climbed the outside of the tube but could not escape due to our special
funnel.
Suddenly, a few minutes later, one inquisitive and brave ant decides to walk through the
tube to explore.
It moves up the tube, and out of the Hacienda Del Dorado.
This was the very first time any Golden Empire worker has left the boundaries of the Hacienda
Del Dorado in almost a year, and considering the fact that ant workers live for only two
months, it was certainly the very first time this worker has ever left.
She was going to be the official discoverer of Golden Rock.
She excitely rushed through the tube across the great chasm
and on to Fire Nation continent.
She rushed into Golden Rock.
With joy and jubilee, the ant immediately began to explore this wide and open rockscape,
running and mapping out these new territories.
If you've never seen an excited and happy ant, this is what it looks like!
And look, here comes a second ant explorer.
Her sister will officially be the second to set tarsi on Golden Rock territories.
Back at the Hacienda Del Dorado, it seems most ants are preoccupied with trying to get
out of the terrarium by climbing the tube, which may seem pretty unintelligent on the
ants' part, but see this is the beauty of ant intelligence.
The very few who do happen to stumble their way into the tube, end up communicating their
discovery to the other ants.
And look, here returns one of the ants from Golden Rock to announce the news to the rest
of the Empire.
She's got some joyous news to tell of a new promised land beyond the borders of the Hacienda
Del Dorado.
It wasn't long before more and more ants decide to check out the hype and also return home
to announce their findings to the rest of the colony.
With this continuing message of new property becoming a trending topic witin the Golden
Empire, I knew it wasn't long before the ants would start an impressive ant trail between
the two lands, and the news was about to kick up a notch.
One ant has found our reservoir of blue honey.
After having a sip, it is suddenly full of excitement and lets other ants it comes in
contact with know that "OMG, there's a huge pool of honey down there!
Go see for yourself and get some!"
This quick vibrating you see here is known as stridulation.
If we were to place a tiny microphone close to them we would hear a chattering noise.
By rubbing body parts together and causing a big vibrational fuss, they literally communicate
"the latest buzz", pun completely intended, and this excites other ants to go check out
whatever it was that was causing excitement.
It's a more physical mode of ant communication, unlike the usual pheromones which is more
biochemical.
When the message of sweet honey got back to the colony, the trail was officially under
way.
Check it out!
The ants had not discovered the fish food yet.
It was just amazing to see the ants excitely exploring and mapping out our design.
The honey was the newest talk of the town!
Look at all those ants with full social stomachs.
You can see the blue through their bodies.
Later as the honey starts to dilute a bit by mixing with the ants' drinking water and
inner fluids, the ants appear green, as we saw in a previous video.
With all this stored honey, they make their way back to the nest to share it with the
rest of the family.
The way they do it is through an awesome process called trophallaxis: I call it the kiss of
life.
Honey is regurgitated from their social stomachs and passed by mouth to hungry ants.
It looks like many ants have come back for seconds!
Wanna see something funny?
Of course after all that sugary food, the ants get food coma.
Check out these ants that have stationed themselves in one of the crevices in the rock.
It seems they've designated it their place to nap.
According to a study, ants take hundreds of power naps which last only a couple minutes,
before waking up and continuing on with business as usual.
All night, the ants continued to explore Golden Rock and hang out in cool spots within the
multifaceted rock face.
The next day, the ants are still working on the honey!
Check out their green bodies!
It looks like our fish food wasn't such a hit.
They're just trying to dig into it at this point.
No worries, though.
I want Golden Rock to be a place where we can test new and different foods.
I plan to constantly switch up the offerings in these exits, perhaps offer a tube of water,
or various insects, different sweets, and sometimes I even just want to make exits dead
ends.
Essentially, the more we keep the ants guessing, the less chances they have to fall into routine
which became a concern in the Hacienda Del Dorado.
These past few days and nights, I've spent a lot of time just sitting and watching the
ants frolicking and congregating in places around Golden Rock, and I realized something
pretty neat.
Yes, the ants on this channel will never really know how many human beings from all around
the globe watch them every week, following their daily lives and quietly supporting them
from afar, nor will they ever know how much joy and inspiration they bring to us, just
by being ants, but I feel, that at least by giving them the chance to find a home within
this custom-designed Gold Play button, now called Golden Rock, they too can benefit in
a way, and enjoy this milestone of 1 million subscribers with us.
To all those who have been gracious enough to subscribe to this channel and are part
of this epic ant journey, on behalf of the ant colonies presently and those of the past
on this channel, thank you.
AC Family, you've each inspired me and showed the world that ant love truly is forever.
Alright!
Thanks for watching, AC Family.
We're now on the road to the next milestone: 10M!
Crazy to think about right?!
Well, I used to think reaching 1 million subscribers was unattainable especially for an ant channel!
But you all proved me wrong, so until we hit the next milestone, please LIKE, COMMENT,
SHARE, and SUBSCRIBE if you haven't yet.
If you enjoy nature, or even if you don't, hit that subscribe button and discover the
dramatic and crazy world that insects live on the micro level.
It will blow your mind, right AC Family?
AC Inner Colony I have left a hidden cookie for you here, if you would just like to watch
extended play footage of the Golden Empire moving into Golden Rock.
Now, before we proceed to the AC Question of the Week, I have an awesome announcement!
In case you haven't heard yet, our annual Christmas Sale at AntsCanada.com is in full
effect!
This year we have a great sale on our brand new Hybrid Nest 2.0 and our All You Need Formica
Hybrid Nest Gear Pack!
So if you've always wanted to get into ant keeping, I have left links in the description
box to these sale items so you can pick one up for yourself or someone you love this Christmas.
We ship worldwide, but just a reminder, you must order before Dec 18th to get your order
before Christmas so go get it asap!
But if you're not fussy about getting the item before Christmas day, this Christmas
sale as usual will continue until January 1st, 2018 and we also have gift cards in case
you would like to get your special loved one an ant setup but are not sure what they would
want.
Keep ants with me and discover how amazing these creatures are in real life!
Alright, and now it's time for the AC Question of the week!
In last week's video we asked:
Name any one of the sites in the Tomb Raider's Setup.
Congratulations to Mariam Hussain who correctly answered:
The Nubian Shelf
We also accepted any of the other twelve locations including Valley of the Kings, Garden of Anubis,
and Field of Aaru.
Congratulations Miriam, you just won a free ant tshirt from our shop!
In this week's AC Question of the Week, we ask:
Why did we choose to make Golden Rock
a dry setup?
Leave your answer in the comments section and you could win a free ant t-shirt from
our shop!
Hope you can subscribe to the channel as we upload every Saturday at 8AM EST.
Please remember to LIKE, COMMENT, SHARE, & SUBSCRIBE if you enjoyed this video to help us keep
making more.
It's ant love forever!
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