Sorry, I worked overtime very late last night, so I can only update once.
——I am the dividing line——
Although ants have a very strong sense of collectivism and put collective interests first in everything. But faced with the additional supply of scarce resources such as high-end food, the male ants are still very happy to accept it.
As for whether the protagonist believes that the effect of winning people's hearts is effective, it remains to be tested by time.
The most popular high-end foods are not those rich in fat and protein, but aphid honeydew. As one of the few purely natural and high-sugar foods available to ants, this is indeed a very delicious drink regardless of its origin.
Even the protagonist, who is used to drinking cola sweet water, was quickly conquered by it. Even if he later learned about the production method of honeydew, the protagonist, who has always had a slight mysophobia, did not abandon it.
Speaking of this sweet tooth, there is another interesting thing.
In the 1940s, human physiologists passed a test and confirmed that humans are the only higher animals on earth that love sweets. There is no other creature with a sweet tooth like humans. Scientists believe that species such as ants prefer foods high in sugar simply because they are high in calories.
But in this world, the protagonist, as an ant, can feel the sweetness. He had communicated with Gun, Lambofei, Xiaomi and Hua Mulan, and confirmed that they also liked honeydew, mostly because of its taste. The protagonist is convinced that ants in this world can also taste and love sweetness.
Looking back at the fact that humans are addicted to sweetness, from a biological perspective, the reason why humans are addicted to sweetness may be that sweetness is the first taste in the world that humans taste from breast milk, and it has since become the energy source of life. It may also be that the high-calorie nature of sweets allowed primitive humans to survive better, thus engraving this taste preference into genes.
The history of human sweetness is actually a history of human evolution.
The earliest sweeteners that humans could use, like ants today, were natural sweeteners. Unlike ants who rely heavily on honeydew and fruits, the earliest sweetness of humans came from honey.
The Sumerians in the 20th century BC were very grateful for this and believed that honey was a gift from the gods. Although people at that time were completely confused about the relationship between nectar, honey and bees, they soon discovered the miraculous curative effects of honey. On stone tablets, they carved records in cuneiform script that honey could be used as a medicinal ointment. Later, the ancient Chinese also discovered this secret. Traditional Chinese medicine used honey and medicine balls to neutralize the bitterness and make the medicine taste slightly sweet.
4,000 years ago when vocabulary was scarce, "honey" symbolized all words with sweetness and became a universal compliment. Anything that was related to "good" or "beautiful" was described as "honey". The Bible describes a fertile land as "flowing with honey and milk."
Sumerian clay tablets depict the groom as "sweet as honey," the bride's kiss "more fragrant than honey," and the bridal chamber "full of honey." But they don't know that honey is actually the vomit of bees, just like honeydew is the excrement of aphids - nature is so magical and mischievous.
In the North American continent where bees have not yet appeared, God has given another sweet gift - maple syrup.
Around 1600 AD, warriors of Indian tribes chopped their tomahawks into maple trees with pentagonal leaves. They were delighted by the slight sweetness of the sap flowing out of the trunks. They used an ax to split a small wedge-shaped piece of wood and propped it up on the cutting edge of the tree trunk. A piece of elm bark was used as a container underneath to catch the sap flowing out of the maple tree. The low temperature at night causes the moisture in the sap to form a thin layer of ice on the surface. This is the most primitive purification. Repeated many times, the color of the sap becomes more and more golden, the texture becomes thicker and thicker, and finally it becomes maple syrup. The Indians rubbed maple sugar into bear fat or mixed it into cornmeal to make dry food for long journeys.
The Europeans who discovered the New World also discovered the secret of maple sugar, but their purification principles were completely opposite to those of the Indians. The maple sap is heated in the holding container. As the water evaporates, the syrup gradually thickens. Generally, 40 kilograms of maple sap can be processed into 1 kilogram of maple sugar.
It wasn’t until 1700 AD that Europeans tasted real “sugar” for the first time, sucrose from the East. At that time, sucrose was more expensive than a luxury product.
As early as 5000 BC, ancient Indians knew how to squeeze sugar cane into juice and add fire to boil it. The lumpy dark substance appearing at the bottom of the pot is the most primitive sucrose. The Chinese in the Tang Dynasty added lime, loess and egg white to the boiled sugar water to absorb impurities, thus creating the "white sugar" closest to the modern meaning.
By the 18th century, cocoa powder was a popular flavoring powder and chocolate was invented based on it.
Human beings have been tireless in exploring sweetness. When humans were no longer satisfied with natural sweetness, they began to invent and use synthetic sweeteners. So far, more than 50 kinds have been developed.
Unlike humans with high technology, ants can now only use natural sources of sweetness, but there are very few types. Compared to fruit juices whose supply is unstable, has variable sweetness and is not conducive to preservation, it is normal for ants to prefer aphid honeydew, which has high sugar content and can be supplied stably throughout the year.
In the past, in "Dongyang City", the aphid colony there was not large. Although aphids reproduce rapidly, their lives are short and they are easily destroyed by factors such as cold, heat, and natural enemies. These limit aphid herd expansion.
The most important thing is that grazing and protecting aphids requires a lot of ant hands, moving the aphids back underground when the weather is bad, moving them out when the weather is good, and fighting the ladybugs when they encounter them, all of which require labor. If the same number of ants are sent to farm, collect, hunt or raise mealworms, the food they can get is higher in calories.
For this reason, the protagonist who focuses on developing his power cannot send more ant hands to take care of the herd, which also limits the growth of the herd.
Now, when we arrive at the main nest "Qingqiu City", everything is different. The most indispensable thing in the main nest is ant hands, and due to the limited foraging range of ants, it is difficult for the environment around "Qingqiu City" to supply all the food for the entire ant nest by relying solely on hunting and gathering. At this time, grazing aphids becomes profitable. s Choice. After all, you only need to work hard to steadily harvest honeydew.
Although this harvest can be reduced due to overabundance of aphids causing the plants to wilt. However, the ant population in the main nest will always decrease sharply due to wars and other reasons. At this time, although the aphid herd will be slightly reduced due to the reduction of protectors, the total honeydew output will be higher than the demand of the remaining ant colonies.
Therefore, there is no shortage of honeydew in the main nest, and many worker ants and soldier ants have a high proportion of honeydew in their diets.
