{"id":96,"date":"2008-03-10T21:23:00","date_gmt":"2008-03-10T21:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2008\/03\/all-the-little-ants-are-marching.html"},"modified":"2008-03-10T21:23:00","modified_gmt":"2008-03-10T21:23:00","slug":"all-the-little-ants-are-marching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2008\/03\/all-the-little-ants-are-marching.html","title":{"rendered":"All The Little Ants Are Marching….*"},"content":{"rendered":"

*I couldn’t help it…I did it again — name that tune!<\/p>\n

I got the boys ant farms for Christmas this year. I had found them at Walgreen’s<\/a> of all places on Black Friday and let me tell you, those Uncle Milton Ant Farms<\/a> are SO cute, I also got one as a 5th birthday gift for my college roommate’s son. The kit includes a coupon with which you can send away for female worker harvester ants<\/a>…or you can order them online<\/a>. The weather has to be opportune before the company will ship the ants…especially when it’s cross-country, as it was in our case.<\/p>\n

I mailed the ant coupons on the first business day after Christmas, and had nearly forgotten about it! They arrived this past Wednesday or Thursday in the mail while I was working in SC. When I got back Saturday night, we set up the ant farms, opened up the vials and let the games begin!<\/p>\n

First of all, we assembled the ant farms and the boys asked us to mark whose farm was whose. (Or is it “who’s farm was who’s”???). So we did that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From 2008 03 10 An…<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Jacob’s Farm — his name is written on the base w\/ a Sharpie<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From 2008 03 10 An…<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Timmy’s Farm<\/p>\n

Then we randomly chose a vial of ants for each boy. Dave dumped one vial into Timmy’s…I dumped the other vial into Jake’s. I had an easy time…the ants went right in, but Dave had to run upstairs for some tweezers from his model railroading supplies to pick up the ants that wiggled out from the container and ended up on our kitchen counter. With just a slight bit of effort, we got all the ants contained.<\/p>\n

It turned out that my vial was so easy to put in Jake’s ant farm because most of them were dead. Probably no more than 10 of the 25-or-so ants were alive. Boo. That might have been because we let them sit in the vial for too long…<\/p>\n

But Timmy’s were alive and well, and his vial somehow ended up with two larvae, which are pictured here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From 2008 03 10 An…<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

I had to hop online and do a little research to figure out why the ants kept on picking up and carrying those larvae all over the place…apparently ants take turns “babysitting”, and they have to keep it fed and at the correct temperature. They keep moving the larvae from the lower level (sand for tunneling) and the upper level (fake plastic farm scenes).<\/p>\n

Jake was quite discouraged at first at the “mass graves” — piles of ant death all over his farm.<\/p>\n

Each of the farms comes with tubing with which you can connect more than one ant farm together, so that’s what we did:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From 2008 03 10 An…<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

It took 2 days before the ants from one side were allowed over to the other side. Each side had posted a sentry-type ant at each end of the upper tube and kept the others from passing through. We set up the ant farms on Saturday, and this afternoon (Monday) the boys and I came home from errands and saw the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From 2008 03 10 An…<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The upper tube connects the upper halves (fake farms) and those pink specks are bits of pink sugar cookie crumbs<\/a> I had dropped in on Saturday night. The lower tube connects the sanded lower halves and you see bits of sand that the ants had to clear to open up that route.<\/p>\n

So as of Monday afternoon, the ants are freely traveling between the two farms and are working together to clear the dead ant carcasses and dig some tunnels.<\/p>\n

Stay tuned — these farms are quite addictive to watch!<\/p>\n

PS: Enjoy the ant tune here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

*I couldn’t help it…I did it again — name that tune! I got the boys ant farms for Christmas this year. I had found them at Walgreen’s of all places on Black Friday and let me tell you, those Uncle Milton Ant Farms are SO cute, I also got one as a 5th birthday gift […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[],"tags":[52,26],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5ycQ0-1y","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":101,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2008\/03\/ant-farm-update.html","url_meta":{"origin":96,"position":0},"title":"Ant Farm Update","date":"13 March 08","format":false,"excerpt":"So, we've had the ants in the farm going on 5 days, and we have some good-looking tunnels appearing now.Unfortunately, all the tunneling is going on in \"Timmy's\" ant farm, while Jake's has something else going on...mass burials of all their dead.I'll tell you what! I think these ant farms\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"ants\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":98,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2008\/03\/in-the-dark-ages.html","url_meta":{"origin":96,"position":1},"title":"In the Dark Ages…","date":"12 March 08","format":false,"excerpt":"So here's the plan to keep the ants in the dark...it allegedly will inspire them to tunnel more. I simply folded a piece of black construction paper in half and rubber-banded it to each of the farms. Stay tuned...I put the construction paper on at about 7pm, will remove it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"ants\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":102,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2008\/03\/hey-im-trying-to-sleep-here.html","url_meta":{"origin":96,"position":2},"title":"HEY! I’m trying to sleep here!","date":"14 March 08","format":false,"excerpt":"In part because I'm sick of all the references to Terminix and Ant Farms for sale at the top of my page, and in part because I'm tired today, allow me to vent!For the unaware, Apex, NC is this \"special\" location on the former Seaboard Air Line RR: the highest\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"ranting\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":97,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2008\/03\/we-have-tunnelage.html","url_meta":{"origin":96,"position":3},"title":"We Have Tunnelage!","date":"12 March 08","format":false,"excerpt":"...though I have to admit that I thought there'd be more tunnels by now...I'm considering putting black construction paper over the sides during the day to encourage more in-the-dark work.From 2008 03 10 An...Now, for those with mining backgrounds, you'll know that what's pictured below isn't a tunnel, but an\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"ants\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":562,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2011\/05\/hiking-stick-project.html","url_meta":{"origin":96,"position":4},"title":"Hiking Stick Project…","date":"09 May 11","format":false,"excerpt":"When we were in South Dakota last May, the boys picked up branches to use as hiking sticks. \u00a0There was ponderosa pine all over the place, and it wasn't hard for the boys to find something in their sizes.The boys begged to bring home the sticks as \"souvenirs\" from their\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"camping\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lh6.googleusercontent.com\/_yz59FVsseJY\/TAWCDoLSB3I\/AAAAAAABBnM\/5lJBm94bkb4\/s640\/IMG_1176.JPG?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":47,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2008\/01\/build-a-bear.html","url_meta":{"origin":96,"position":5},"title":"Build a Bear!","date":"19 January 08","format":false,"excerpt":"On Friday I took the boys to the Build a Bear store in Durham so the boys could use their Christmas gift cards from Cousin Jenn. Timmy was sound asleep when we got there, so Jake was able to go through the bear-making process on his own, and Timmy awakened\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"crafts\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}