Feeding Ants

Kiddos #2 & 3 and I fed ants this afternoon. It was a spur of the moment "experiment" inspired by a Magic School Bus book one of them had brought home from the library. I can remember, as a kid, spending hours watching ants. At my grandpa's house, there were mounds and mounds of those huge red ants. We called them fire ants because of their color, though they aren't anything like the fire ants in the south that swarm and attack all at once, leaving those little blisters all over.

Our ants were big and red and, though they would bite if given the opportunity, I could carefully arrange myself so that I could watch their activities without getting in their way. I was fascinated with they way they could carry such enormous items (twigs, leaf bits, food particles). They were always so productive and busy.

When I said to the kids, "Where do you think we should look for some ant piles?" I was a little surprised that all three of them knew EXACTLY where to look. I shouldn't have been, but I was. I was ready to make the hunt part of the fun, but they've obviously been spending a little time watching our ants already(little tiny things with black rumps and red heads). So we took out some food offerings: flour, sugar, syrup, and bread crumbs. We arranged piles at more or less equal distances from the holes and then we just watched. It was really, really cool. I'd forgotten just how fun it is to watch ants.

We must have watched for half an hour. Then we made periodic trips back out to see how things had changed throughout the day. The 7-year-old quickly added "forager" to her vocabulary. Those are the ants who do all the food-getting. But we are pretty sure we saw some guard ants, as well. Just inside the hole, a couple of ants with unusually large heads kept stepping up to check out those entering the hole. Fascinating stuff.

I foresee a few more ant books on our horizon.