my food site is weber_cam

August 30, 2009

Could've Googled it, but this was more fun.


Some time ago, Frankie and thought it'd be fun to take swarming ants and drag them into an artful design by luring them into said art with a stream of sugar. Then, we didn't know what sweetener they'd like best. Cane, honey, Splenda?

This morning we were lucky enough to stumble on a productive line of ants and place a few dabs of sugar and a few dabs of honey. Seems to be a unanimous vote for honey. Still haven't tried the Splenda, although they don't seem to need to lose weight.

4 comments:

Not Important said...

When GPop and I lived in a crappy little apartment, I did our laundry at a laundromat across the street. There were sometimes ants in the front of that room near the door. I determined, through trial and error, that ants liked hamburger buns, but not the crust, and the insides of french fries. They do not like Coca-Cola.

Sometimes, if we take Beardie outside, I'll put a little honey on the patio so that ants find it. It's like a buffet for Beardie.

Dave said...

The Mrs pointed out a major flaw in our design. We need to present the two sweeteners in solution in the same concentration. She's a stickler for good experimental design.

I too let my dog out to swipe up a few of the "sprinkles." She loved them.

Not Important said...

I think I'll go out to a backyard anthill tonight with a teaspoon of sugar, a teaspoon of honey, and a teaspoon of Splenda. I'll put them all on a piece of cardboard on top of the ant hill and see what happens.

This assumes that a) I will have enough energy to do this, and b) I will remember.

Dave said...

By the way, going to an anthill is necessary. A week or so ago, we thought we could create a swarm by simply putting honey and sugar on the ground. Nada. No ants. I'm clearly no bug guy (-ologist?), but I was surprised by this.