Thanks to the heavy rain, the military threat in the south has been temporarily lifted, which also allows the protagonist to turn his attention to domestic affairs again.
Thanks to the heavy rain, "Dongyang City" ushered in a bumper harvest.
Of course, this bumper harvest does not refer to the plants that bear grass seeds in the farmland. After all, they have just sprouted. Even if the weeds grow quickly, it will take two or three months to harvest.
First of all, the number of prey near "Dongyang City" suddenly increased greatly.
Insects enter their breeding season in summer, especially after rain. Plants grow wildly and directly or indirectly provide a large amount of food for vegetarian or carnivorous insects.
Now, there are so many prey near "Dongyang City" that the protagonist is dazzled.
Beside every small pool, there are swarms of smoky gnats flying around. The mosquito pillars they form are as spectacular as a tornado that is constantly moving irregularly.
At any time and at any time, gnats that have reached the end of their lives will fall from the sky and fall to the ground. But the ants have no interest at all in these insect corpses with little meat. There are more attractive foods waiting for them everywhere.
For example, you can easily find a large number of plump caterpillars on any plant. Their meat is delicate and delicious, far better than those gnats that have only a few strands of meat after chewing.
If you are willing to put in some effort, there are always some earthworms crawling out of the ground in dark and damp corners. Dozens of worker ants working together can catch this good prey.
Even the honeydew that ants like is now available.
Although the aphids in "Dongyangcheng" suffered heavy losses in the previous heavy rains, after the rain, these aphids showed amazing fecundity.
The reproduction method of aphids is relatively complex: the female (stemmother) reproduces parthenogenetically in the summer in an ovoviviparous manner, producing cloned young aphids. It is not until late summer that the female aphids mate with the male aphids, and then the female aphids lay eggs. After the eggs overwinter, they hatch again into females (stemmothers).
The high fecundity of aphids is reflected in their ability to reproduce parthenogenetically. Female aphids are fertile as soon as they are born and can reproduce for 10 to 30 generations a year.
These aphids grazed in "Dongyang City" can sometimes produce 5-10 copies of themselves in a day. This allows the aphid herd to expand in size like a balloon.
The dramatic increase in the number of aphids has brought obvious benefits. Even if honeydew is stored in clay pots and placed underground at a constant temperature, its shelf life is not long. Therefore, the honeydew that ants love can finally be openly supplied with no limit on the quantity. This makes the ants in "Dongyang City" very happy. happy. Even the flies of the Flying Knight are exposed to the light and can happily drink their favorite honeydew.
The disadvantages are also obvious: "Dongyang City" needs to dispatch more worker ants to guard the herd and collect honeydew. In areas where aphids are infested, vegetation is generally malnourished, and some are even sucked dry to death.
In the end, the protagonist can only ask the grazing worker ants to move the aphids away from the plants that produce grass seeds and fruits, so as not to affect the autumn harvest. When there are too many aphids, a group of weak aphids may even have to be killed to make room and food for their stronger, more prolific counterparts.
The livestock in "Dongyang City" also experienced a surge in numbers.
In underground nests after rain, the temperature and humidity are within the most suitable range for mealworm breeding. Only carefully selected mealworms (the selection criteria are: more meat, faster growth, and more eggs) can survive to pupae and then re-dedicate their eggs to the ants.
Every day, a large number of mealworms that have grown to their optimal size are released from the slaughterhouse. The soldier ants responsible for the slaughter bite off the nerves at the back of their necks. Most of the killed insects are dried in the sun or made into cured meat and stored. Wait until winter to eat.
Only a small portion of the mealworm meat is eaten fresh. In order to improve the food of the ants, the protagonist led the worker ants to try new ways of eating mealworm broth, grilled insect meat, stewed insect meat with roots, etc. These dishes soon became popular on the menus of all male and female ants. As for ordinary ants, they can only eat these carefully prepared meals when they are rewarded.
When the ants collected plants in the wild, they brought back some plants with special flavors, which also enriched the seasonings of the entire "Dongyang City", not just salt. The protagonist found substitutes for peppercorns, cinnamon, and ginger, which also made it possible to invent more dishes.
In addition, since the Flying Knight Legion has no plans to expand after reaching the upper limit of fifty, there is no need to cultivate so many adult flies.
The maggots raised by the ants, except for those kept for seeding, are also slaughtered when they are at their most fertile and eaten like mealworms. Although these maggots are fed clean feed and taste even more delicious than mealworms, the protagonist is still unwilling to eat them. Under his influence, maggots are not included in the menus of male and female ants. On the contrary, soldier ants and worker ants are extremely fond of this kind of meat.
The meat provided by prey and livestock has almost burst the granary in "Dongyang City", and the protagonist has to order the excavation of a new granary.
In addition to meat, the ants also began to collect a large amount of vegetarian food as a supplement.
In addition to grass seeds, the protagonist also asked the ants who were out foraging to collect some non-toxic sprouts and eat them as vegetables.
Big-headed ants are originally omnivorous ants, and they used to eat small amounts of some plants.
Therefore, these vegetarian foods quickly became popular throughout "Dongyang City". Even the low-status soldier ants and worker ants are now tired of eating grilled insect meat and cannot resist the temptation of a fresh vegetable leaf.
After a rain, a lot of fungi emerge.
For edible fungi and poisonous fungi, ants have a method of identifying edible fungi that has been passed down from generation to generation.
The protagonist soon saw a large amount of fresh fungi being transported back to the nest. Except for some that were eaten fresh that day, most of them were dried in the drying yard next to the entrance to the nest.
Seeing this scene, the protagonist suddenly remembered the scene he saw outside the new nest of the parasitic ant - a dead leaf butterfly flew into the sky carrying a large number of larvae of thread-parasitic fungi. Thread-parasitic fungi are also fungi!
The alert protagonist immediately asked the worker ants who were out to check whether they found fungi similar to the thread-parasitic fungi, and sent pictures of the thread-parasitic fungi to all the ants in the nest.
Feedback soon came, and some worker ants brought the suspected bacteria they collected to the protagonist.
The protagonist, Rambo Fei and Lambo Fo (these three adult male ants are currently the only ones left in the nest, the others are stationed in the southern fortress with Gun) check out these fungi together.
Most of the suspected bacteria are normal edible fungi such as Enoki mushrooms.
But soon, the protagonist picked out a piece of mycelium.
It has a slender and long mushroom column, and the umbrella-like structure at the top is very small and pointed like a snake's head.
This is the larvae of a typical thread-parasitic fungus... The protagonist feels nervous all over.
These demons, their claws have reached near "Dongyang City"!
