The Milk Bar

I really wish I knew how to take a better photo of this. It was fascinating to watch. Seriously! Even Aaron was interested in them.

We've got the ant situation enough under control so they don't come to the kitchen or onto the dining table. BUT, for food dropped anywhere else in the house, they're the super cleaners.



This little army of ants worked on two good sized crumbs for over 12 hours. As you can see, the hole they were trying to take them down was way too small. They just kept maneuvering in and out, backwards and forwards, left and right, over and over again. I wonder what they were saying to each other the whole time??

I noticed them around 4pm the other day. A couple of hours later, I noticed that they were still at it. Thats when I took the photos. As we watched TV that night, they were still hard at work.

I saw them drop the crumbs numerous times but they just went back down to the floor, picked it up and started all over again. I checked on them before going to bed and they were still working at it.

The next morning, they were all gone! Crumbs too! I'm sure they didn't figure out an alternate route. I think they nibbled as they worked and finally, it was small enough to take down that hole. Talk about determination and team work!

Here's a link to some interesting ant facts. I've cut and paste a few of them here:

If a man could run as fast for his size as an ant can, he could run as fast as a racehorse.

Ants can lift 20 times their own body weight.

An ant brain has about 250 000 brain cells. A human brain has 10,000 million so a colony of 40,000 ants has collectively the same size brain as a human.

Some worker ants are given the job of taking the rubbish from the nest and putting it outside in a special rubbish dump.

The Slave-Maker Ant raids the nests of other ants and steals their pupae. When these new ants hatch,they work as slaves within the colony.

Some ants sleep seven hours a day.

Some ants care for and "farm" other insects.

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