Mar 26 2008
Ant Farm: The Lost In The Mail Gel Colony
They made it! They finally got here! Well, most of them; anyway. Nukeboy2 had his heart set on an ant farm, so with the $6,000 in Toys R Us gift cards he got at Christmas, we were off. The purchase was painless, the wait for the actual ants was excruciating. See, Uncle Milton (The Ant Farm Makers) failed to mention that on the outside of the box. I didn’t expect for there to be live ants in it, but I didn’t expect to have to wait almost 3 months for them either.
Nukeboy2 purchased his ant farm back at the end of December. We filled out the card for the ants (please enclose $6) and sent it off. Strangely, there was no option on the card to pay with a Toys R Us gift card. No matter. The card read: Allow 3 to 6 weeks for delivery. That’s quite the delivery window, isn’t it? Anyway, right after that the card read: Weather permitting. Hmmm. Upon further review of the e-mail we received, it seems that harvester ants have an aversion to trips through the U.S. Postal Service in sub-freezing temperatures. Makes sense. But there is this thing called full disclosure….
The day had finally arrived; the ants were here! Nukeboy2 came in the door after school and I immediately told him: “Go get your ant farm, the ants finally got here!” His reply? “What ant farm?” I had forgotten. Kids live in dog-time. 1 day seems like 7, so for Nukeboy2, ordering ants two and a half months ago may as well have been 2 years ago. I could see his Axon’s fluxing and he said “Oh, yeah! The ant farm! I’ll be right back!” It took him almost 5 minutes, but he finally found it under his bed. “Here it is Dad!” he said. Homework would just have to wait a few minutes, I was almost as excited as he was.
We had waited so long for the ants, that in our haste we didn’t read the instructions again. We knew we had to put them in the refrigerator (Not the freezer!) for 15 minutes to calm them and avoid flesh wounds; what we forgot was the “starter holes”. They sent a little jabby thingy to make starter holes in the gel, but it was still under the bed. Along with one of the hole plugs, but that’s another story. We poured in the “25 to 30″ harvester ants and put the lid on. What actually came out was 24 ants, several thoraxes, a few heads, some mandibles and lots and lots of legs.
In 24 to 48 hours our little guys were supposed to be digging up a storm, but all they had done is sit there with their faces plugged in the gel sucking in water and “nutrients”. “Why aren’t they doing anything, Dad?” Nukeboy2 asked. I didn’t have an answer for him. “Maybe they’re on strike” I said. Well, two nights ago, miracle of miracles happened. They had sucked so much water and “nutrients” from the gel that they actually sucked it away from the walls of the case. One or two of the poor saps fell into the crevasse, and had to eat their way back to the surface. Now they’re tunneling like crazy. Last night they completed their version of “The Chunnel”. If you look close, you can see from the bottom right the tunnel is skinny, but from the top down it is like an 8 lane interstate. I believe the English ants tunneled down, and the French ants were tunneling up. Just a theory.
