In addition to solving the imminent food supply problem of the main nest "Qingqiu City", the protagonist also plans to carry out drastic reconstruction of the main nest.
As the main nest of the Big-headed Ant Kingdom, "Qingqiu City" has more than 100,000 ant colonies. The complex structure and grand scale of its nest structure are second to none in the entire Big-headed Ant Kingdom. Compared with the big cities of the Pavement Ant Barbarian Kingdom, Favorably.
However, the protagonist also noticed that this complexity and grandeur were more due to scale expansion rather than quality improvement.
In other words, the main nest "Qingqiu City" is more like four or five ordinary secondary nests stacked together, and there is nothing exquisite in its design.
Also, although the big-headed ant kingdom talks about the king's meeting composed of male ants, when it comes to nest construction, they will simply issue orders to expand the nest or build a few more nests.
The specific design and execution are entirely the work of the workers.
As a kind of nesting organism, worker ants are born with the ability to dig holes. They know how to build nest chambers and passages, how to avoid landslide areas with loose soil, and how to build a drainage system for the foundation of the nest to ensure safety during the rainy season.
However, all this is ultimately driven by instinct and rarely involves deliberate design.
This makes the passages of the entire ant nest seem to extend in all directions, but they are more like the blood vessel network of the human body. It is easy to reach any lane from the main passage, but there is no quick and direct connection between different lanes, but must Detour through the main passage.
What's even worse is that due to the need for defense, all entrances and exits are concentrated together. As the size of the nest expands, worker ants living in the most remote places need to spend more time to go out, which greatly increases the cost of commuting.
In addition, although the entire main nest "Qingqiu City" is built under a small hill, at first glance it looks like the anthills that can be seen everywhere in Africa.
But after moving in, the protagonist realized that this was just an ordinary ant city built under the hill.
Perhaps the original builder of the main nest chose this nesting location because he felt it was safer during the rainy season.
The mounds built by termites in Africa - termite hills - are much more advanced than this underground nest. Even though these big-headed ants are already intelligent, their construction skill points are not as good as those of the more primitive earth termites.
A termite hill is a nest where termites use their own secretions to glue and pile up grass and soil. This mountain is the home of termites, where they live and reproduce. In Africa and Australia, various termite hills can be seen everywhere, especially in grasslands and forest areas.
Termite hills are both strong and practical. Termites use clay brought from the ground, mixed with wood chips and grass scraps collected from the ground, and then mixed with their own saliva and other secretions. These several things are bonded together and, after being baked by the sun, they become a building material as hard as concrete.
Due to different types of termites, differences in geographical environment, and the age at which the nests were built, the shapes, sizes and colors of termite hills are very different. The shapes include mountain peaks, mounds, mounds or columns. The height of ant nests generally ranges from 1 to 5 meters, and some are 10 meters or even higher. The color varies with the soil in different places, including red, brick red, yellow, and gray. The distribution of termite hills can be scattered or concentrated. In the inland delta of the Niger River in Mali, there are spectacular large termite hills.
These termite hills are architectural wonders of the insect world and not only prevent invasion by foreign enemies. To protect the safety of the ant colony and queen, there is also a comfortable environment that is warm in winter and cool in summer, with almost constant temperature and humidity.
The ant body generally has a tree-like structure, with intricate passages, ranging from wide to narrow. The narrow passages diverge upwards, merge downwards into a wide tunnel, and extend to the cool depths of the ground. This structure connects the sky and the ground. , making the air circulation outside the nest convenient. The termites build tall, thin-walled, chimney-like ventilation pipes around the mound, using air convection caused by sunlight to achieve a balanced temperature in the nest.
Termites will even dig tunnels to "pump" underground water to help dissipate heat. In rainy areas, the ant mound is like a big mushroom, allowing rainwater to flow smoothly without damaging the ant mound. Such a huge, complex and ingenious building was built by completely blind termite workers each carrying a small piece of soil, which makes people marvel.
Proportionally speaking, a termite hill built by termites is equivalent to a 1,500-meter-tall skyscraper built by humans—almost twice as tall as the 818-meter Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world today.
These termite hills have also provided inspiration for human architects, such as architect Mick Peel. His most famous works are the Eastgate Shopping Center in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, and the Melbourne Municipal Office Building 2 (CH2).
Opened in 1996, Dongmen Shopping Center is probably the first building in the world to apply natural cooling methods to such a mature building. It is located in the tropics, and the temperature in Zimbabwe can vary between 10°C and 40°C in a day. Therefore, during the day, this building stores heat with its structural material with high heat capacity; when it cools down at night, it slowly releases the heat. In the end, the building has 5,600 square meters of retail space and 26,000 square meters of office space. Although it is not air-conditioned, it is cool and pleasant. It consumes one-tenth the energy of a conventional building of its size.
CH2, located in the center of Melbourne, won the United Nations Architecture Award for its sustainable design and is Australia's first six-star green building. Construction started in early 2004 and was officially opened in August 2006, with a total construction area of 12,500 square meters.
The protagonist's ideal ant nest is a nest that has both human design and the construction capabilities of ants. The termite hills in Africa and Mick Peel's architectural design provide inspiration for the protagonist.
Therefore, under the command of the protagonist, the entire lair began to be transformed in full swing.
A large number of dead roads were connected to each other to form a three-dimensional traffic network with criss-crossing streets. Some small roads were transformed into exhaust pipes, and the original drainage channels deep underground were widened.
Many nests originally also served as roads, but after renovation, all nests have only two entrances and exits at most, which are separated from the roads to avoid the situation of often having to cross the nest to move. This also makes it easier for each nest room to better serve as dormitories, warehouses and other functions.
The protagonist also built a palace in the style of "Dongyang City" for himself, the male ants and the queen ant in a safe place.
The entire renovation project lasted for nearly a year, which is a story for another day.
