Two days after the cold wave, the temperature has indeed risen quite regularly, and at least it was still nearly 20 degrees at noon.
This is a tug-of-war between autumn and winter. Winter is unstoppable, but autumn always resists and can occasionally succeed in counterattacking. This is true in every season. After three months, won’t spring and late spring cold also have to go back and forth like this for a month?
The ants in the Ant Alliance are seizing the last opportunity and busy preparing for winter.
At 10 o'clock in the morning, the flying knight messengers set off from the main nest [Xinyang City] together and headed towards dozens of secondary nests in all directions.
On average, each flying knight has to visit three or four sub-nests. They have to convey to the local sub-nest meeting the latest spirit of the just-convened joint conference of all races and the winter mission instructions of the Divine Envoy King, and then rush back before sunset and the temperature drops today. [Xinyangcheng] returned to life.
The transportation team formed by "Lao Xin" also set off at almost the same time. They were working harder and had to carry a large amount of burned charcoal to [Yueer Lan City]. These goods were not easy to save.
Now [February Lancheng], due to its dual location advantages of being close to the iron ore producing area and convenient transportation, the number of iron-making blast furnaces has exceeded that of the main nest [Xinyangcheng], and its iron output is twice that of [Xinyangcheng], becoming The largest iron-making center in China.
However, the fuel resources near February Lan City are not rich enough, especially the lack of forests to provide sufficient firewood for charcoal burning. As iron production increases, the local area becomes increasingly dependent on external fuel input.
[Xinyangcheng] Originally there was a batch of charcoal, which was fired in the newly built charcoal kiln in the Black Forest area. It was transported by the water transport team along the second phase of the canal that had been built. It was originally planned to continue through the canal. Transport it to [February Lan City].
At that time, there was a cold current, and the water transport team and charcoal cargo were stranded in [Xinyangcheng]. Nowadays, the water in the canal is close to drying up as the flow of water from the source mountain stream has decreased, so we can only use ant transportation to transport this batch of important materials that are related to the normal operation of the [February Lancheng] blast furnace in winter.
This transportation team formed by "Lao Xin" is mainly composed of cold-resistant pavement ant workers. A small pile of charcoal is packed in a net bag the size of a broad bean. More than two dozen worker ants bite and carry it with their big jaws, and walk away. Unfortunately, it takes about two days to reach [February Orchid City] which is not far away, and we have to rest overnight in a secondary nest on the way.
A total of thousands of pavement ants are involved in this work. This is currently the largest single use of pavement ants other than canal construction sites.
After seeing off the transport team, the protagonist went to inspect the breeding farm again.
Winter is approaching. Although the breeding farm is underground, the room temperature can be kept roughly constant. It will not be a problem to continue raising mealworms in winter.
However, because worker ants cannot go out to collect feed for mealworms in winter, it is too wasteful to feed the mealworms with the food that the ants themselves eat. Therefore, only about one-twentieth of the mealworms are left in the farm every winter. Feed on the garbage and corpses produced by the ant nest.
Of course, there are still hundreds of thousands of Tenebrio molitor eggs stored in the warehouse next to the breeding farm, and the breeding scale can be restored soon as spring begins.
In winter, mealworms still prefer fresh and clean food, but when they have nothing to eat, they can only be willing to become the garbage disposal for ants, which just solves the problem of garbage accumulation in ant nests in winter.
Most of the mealworms that are being cultured are about to usher in a wave of slaughter peaks.
The ants take advantage of the early winter when the sun is still strong and the outside is dry to make dried mealworms or bacon jerky.
I saw a large number of big-headed ant worker ants working inside and outside the farm at this time.
A twisted and struggling mealworm was no match for the strength of the ants and was dragged from the soft and comfortable breeding room covered with hay to the slaughterhouse outside.
There was a strong smell of blood in the slaughterhouse that wouldn't go away. Even though there was a vent connected to the outside, it still smelled bad.
The protagonist stood at the door of the slaughterhouse and looked inside, only to see the mealworm dragged in struggling and being pinned to the ground by a dozen worker ants.
A veteran ant with a thick iron-edged jaw knife on its big jaw climbed up the body of the mealworm and found the fatal hole behind the head of the mealworm with ease.
The mealworm seemed to sense the malicious intentions of the ants on its back and tried to shrink its neck. But it was too late and then the veteran ant was seen lowering its head, aiming at the position, and opening and closing its jaws.
The mealworm stopped moving for a moment, only its body was still twitching as a result of conditioned reflexes.
The veteran ant butcher cut off the nerves connecting the mealworm's head to the body with one mouthful. Since the insect's physiology is relatively primitive, this cannot completely destroy its nervous system and movement ability, but it has made it unable to escape or resist.
While the mealworm is still fresh and warm, the ants quickly start the next process.
This mealworm has just finished its last shell before pupating. It is the time when it grows the strongest, has the fattest flesh, and has the softest carapace. Most mealworms will be killed at this time, otherwise the carapace will harden later and they will pupate soon!
The ants easily tore off the thin light yellow ring-shaped carapace with their mandibles. The mealworm's body continued to shrink due to the pain, but gradually lost its breath.
The intensive slaughtering in winter causes some mealworms to be about to shed their shells, which is when the carapace is the hardest. Sometimes the ants have to burn the carapace with a torch before removing it.
After processing the carapace, the ants took the bloody mealworm body with the carapace peeled off and the head cut off to the next nest chamber.
Here, the mealworm was completely dead when it was placed on a stone platform.
On both sides of the stone platform, several worker ants lifted a slightly heavy round stone stick onto the mealworm's body, and rolled the stone stick from both sides of the stone platform to press it over the mealworm's body.
Some of the internal organs and dirt in the stomachs of the mealworms were squeezed out of the excretion openings. The ants then cleaned up the mealworm flesh and the dirt on the stone platform, and the mealworm meat strips were completely processed.
After the cleaned meat is wiped and cleaned with water, it will be sent outdoors. There is a large open space outside that has been prepared as a drying ground. Thousands of ants take care of the dried meat here, turning it from time to time and rushing around. Get rid of the food-hungry insects that are still alive.
Most dried meat needs to be dried in the sun for more than three days before it is completely dry, so it is not a problem to store it for a whole winter. These are the main meat for ant nests in winter.
A small part is left in the sun for a day and then transported underground, where it is cured in special wooden barrels with coarse salt obtained from trade. This kind of bacon tastes better and is the exclusive food of noble ants.
Sometimes, the combustion chamber is also used to make some bacon. The protagonist loves to eat bacon.
Looking at this busy scene, the protagonist instantly felt that it was really like curing bacon before the Chinese New Year in his previous life!
