Monday, 14 May 2012

Right Suborder, Wrong Genus


Spike Towers is finally home to a colony of insects.
Unfortunately it's not the expected arrival of a 5 frame nucleus of Apis mellifera carnica but a surprisingly robust colony of ants. 
And they've decided to take up residence in the bathroom.
There really are quite a lot of them.
Lots of these


LandofSpike supposes that the higher than average rainfall this month has sluiced them out of their usual subterranean home and into the relatively more arid environs of Spike Towers.
At this moment a bitter struggle for territorial advantage is probably raging between the newcomers and the previously dominant silverfish.

This untimely invasion may, however, be opportune, for on his last visit to the Secret Underground Vault which harbours his Empire's Capital Reserves, LandofSpike couldn't help but notice that the coffers were more than unusually empty.
Not many of these


Consequently, LandofSpike is considering postponing his acquisition of a flight of honeybees and adopting, in their stead, the already installed, and therefore significantly cheaper, colony of ants.


AntsofSpike could make perfect sense.


It would mean that emphasis would shift from honey production to a prospective entry into the fledgling formic acid market. 
A FriendofSpike has suggested that he could even diversify into cultivating and marketing that nutritious fungus that the ants produce. 
With careful husbandry and a couple of well placed features in the Sunday supplements, FungusofSpike could possibly become next year's Groovy New Superfood.

LandofSpike could solve World Hunger at a stroke or, better still, get totally minted by opening the World's First Ant Salon and Exclusive AntFungus Restaurant in Primrose Hill.


Or, conversely, LandofSpike could just stop wasting everybody's time with his nonsensical AntTalk and make sure his next post is actually about honeybees.

4 comments:

  1. Sounds like a plan! And with your extra earnings on the ants you will be able to purchase the bees in no time. With a little help and gentle encouragement I'm sure you could then find yourself breeding a whole new species of honey ants instead...

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  2. Brilliant! Creating my own new species of honey ants is an even better plan.
    There's a whole new career as the Dr Moreau of the insect world opening out before me.

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  3. Hope these aren't red ants - they BITE!
    from Great Ant Anne

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  4. The Ant Menace seems to have passed. I'm supposing that now the ground has dried out a bit they've gone back to their original digs.

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