Ant Traps, Part 1, "Something New"
Change of plans.
Whatever we found on our foraging expeditions, we brought it back to our Queen.
This was different.
It wasn't the Queen's idea, really. She didn't do much thinking; just eating, and pumping out eggs.
One of our scouts came back with a report of something new, and a foraging party went back out along her scent trail.
We found it, and began scooping out the odd, sweet paste.
None of us knows why, but our leader hesitated on her path back to the nest. She turned, and made her way to one of our regular stops. We followed, as we always do.
She made the long arduous climb up, over the lip, and down to where we always find a pool of sweet water, often with caffeine.
The leader did something she'd never done before, something NONE of us had done before: she deposited her entire load of the new sweet paste in the pool, then turned to climb out again. What did the rest of us do? We followed our Leader, as we always do.
We toiled endlessly, until we moved all the strange new paste to the old familiar pool, and then moved on to another food source that we'd used for as long as anyone could remember. We brought back a load of the familiar food, for the Queen.
Whatever we found on our foraging expeditions, we brought it back to our Queen.
This was different.
It wasn't the Queen's idea, really. She didn't do much thinking; just eating, and pumping out eggs.
One of our scouts came back with a report of something new, and a foraging party went back out along her scent trail.
We found it, and began scooping out the odd, sweet paste.
None of us knows why, but our leader hesitated on her path back to the nest. She turned, and made her way to one of our regular stops. We followed, as we always do.
She made the long arduous climb up, over the lip, and down to where we always find a pool of sweet water, often with caffeine.
The leader did something she'd never done before, something NONE of us had done before: she deposited her entire load of the new sweet paste in the pool, then turned to climb out again. What did the rest of us do? We followed our Leader, as we always do.
We toiled endlessly, until we moved all the strange new paste to the old familiar pool, and then moved on to another food source that we'd used for as long as anyone could remember. We brought back a load of the familiar food, for the Queen.