Winter came early this year and left slowly.
In the first half of the winter, the sky was shrouded in cold air, although there was only a moderate snowfall at the beginning. After that, the sun and blue sky dominated the sky, and the sun covered the earth. However, cold is the main theme.
Neither the sun nor the blue sky nor the monotonous land due to the lack of ice and snow cover can hide the cruel fact of cold.
Even at noon when the sun is the strongest, even pavement ants that can fully absorb the energy of the sun and can be active outdoors for a short period of time in winter do not dare to go out during the day in this season.
Large rivers were frozen in just a few days, and smaller mountain streams were also covered by ice and snow. Through the ice surface that was quickly frozen and made extremely transparent, you could still see the water flowing under the ice. Occasionally there will be a crisp or dull sound, which is the sound of water hitting small rocks on the ice.
Desolate, with almost no green; dead, with almost no life. This is the cruel winter. In a world without warm-blooded animals such as mammals and birds, almost no other ectotherms would be able to be active during this season.
The protagonist spent half a month in the dark underground, with no military intelligence from the north he was concerned about, no enemies to defend, and few urgent matters to deal with.
The ant nest in winter is lazy and peaceful. Except for a few who are still working, most of the ants have not received tasks and do not need to work. They spend their time eating and sleeping. The queen stops laying eggs, the soldier ants stop training, and most workers have nothing to do except repair the nest.
But there are some exceptions for worker ants. Most of these worker ants have a special skill and have to be busy even in winter.
For example, worker ants in a farm have to check the nest chambers where a large number of fly eggs and mealworm eggs are stored every now and then, and pick out the damaged eggs and take them to the food warehouse to avoid contaminating other intact eggs.
The granary must also be inspected regularly, and food that shows signs of spoilage will be thrown to the upper part of the nest, which is close to the surface and has a lower temperature, acting as a natural refrigerator.
Artisan worker ants who make pottery and make gravel tools cannot be idle. With the popularity of pottery and stone tools, they have to train novices who lack coordination of their six limbs while working hard to complete production tasks.
Of course, in return for hard work, the protagonist will allocate part of the precious meat and high-end food to these workers and ensure that they get enough sleep. As long as these two points can be ensured, the lifespan of worker ants can be greatly extended, much longer than those of the same kind in other nests that can only take a short nap. After all, these experienced "industrial workers" are the protagonist's precious wealth, and the longer they live, the more they contribute.
The busiest thing is the newly established textile worker ant group. The felting group has mastered the technology and is making felt from the stock of new ant silk or waste ant silk, as well as a small amount of insect hairs. The weaving team is still training. They need time to adapt to the working method of dozens of closely coordinated and coordinated work. For this reason, the protagonist even has to equip this team with a cherished big worker ant as the team leader.
The finished felt and the first piece of ant silk fabric have been delivered. The protagonist's bedroom is now filled with ant-style fabrics: bed sheets, tablecloths, wall curtains, and door curtains. The protagonist has installed fabrics in every place he can think of. It also led other male ants and queen ants to follow suit.
For this reason, the protagonist had to set a quota for the use of textiles, and then reserved part of the small inventory for equipment for his pavement ants.
Most of the pavement ants are in "Southern City" and are commanded by King Fuye. However, "Dongyang City" only retains a small number of veteran worker ants of pavement ants in the scientific research team. They are responsible for sharing the technology of pavement ants with other team members, although the pavement ants, like the big-headed ants, are technically lackluster.
After the weather finally warms up and temperatures break freezing during the day, the protagonist picks out a pavement ant and experiments with his cold-weather clothing.
The cold-weather garments were made of light felt, dyed black with the juice of rotting black berries that were unfit for consumption—berries that had the appearance of cloudberries and the smell of mulberries. The felt winter clothing is cut by the craftsman ants with a simple gravel blade to a suitable size, which can be draped over the body of a pavement ant, and then tied up with rope to cover most of the exposed surface of the chest and abdomen except the head. It will not affect the movement of the six limbs and the air intake of the stomata.
The experimental pavement ant was covered with felt, and together with the other control pavement ant, which was still naked, they crawled out of the hole in the morning at the request of the protagonist, and then placed a dark leaf next to it for drying dried meat. Basking in the sun on rocks.
The pavement ants covered with felt obviously did not absorb heat as fast as the other ants of the same species. Although the felt was also dark, it covered the surface of the body after all. There should be some evolutionary secret on the carapace of pavement ants that allows them to quickly absorb heat and energy from the winter sun to warm up their stiff bodies.
However, once absorbed, the felt-covered pavement ants were able to maintain their temperature much longer than their counterparts. After leaving a place with direct sunlight and entering a shaded area, pavement ants that are not covered with felt can only move for a maximum of one hour before they have to go back to recharge their energy, otherwise they will freeze or even freeze to death. The felt pavement ants, on the other hand, can be active for up to three hours because they dissipate heat more slowly.
Obviously, the best way to use felt winter clothing is to put it on after the pavement ants are naked and soaking up the sun.
After the experiment was completed, the protagonist sent two pavement ants to "Southern City" to convey the order, asking King Fuye to select a small team of elite scout warriors to come. He had arrangements.
The distance from "Dongyang City" to "Southern City" is not far. Half a day is enough. After the pavement ants who sent the order have had enough sun and put on warm clothes, they set off in the morning and arrived after noon.
In the afternoon of the next day, the elite scout team sent by King Fuye arrived.
The protagonist asked the craftsman ants to quickly make fifty sets of felt cold-proof clothing. After training these pavement ant scouts to learn to quickly put on and take off the cold-proof clothing in pairs, he scattered these pavement ants outside the nest during the day when the weather was still good. Conduct field training in the four fields.
With the addition of cold-proof clothing, the pavement ants, which can be active in the wild for a short period of time in winter, are even more powerful. They make up for the disadvantages of other ants such as big-headed ants in winter. With such a winter special team, the protagonist has More military feasibility. And that's exactly what the protagonist wants.
After another half month of training, the cold wave came again and the training had to be suspended.
And when the weather gets warm next time, the protagonist wants to send a small army of pavement ants to the north bank of the river to learn about the intelligence there!
