Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to remember an ant, a colony member, a sister and a worker: Daffodil the Eastern Black Carpenter Ant. Daffodil loved to explore, she loved to escape and that's how we first got to know her, and suspecting that the same ant was escaping over and over she was given her yellow colors and her name. #namedAnts
And it was true, more than many of her sisters she loved to make a break for it, exploring the living room and kitchen, even making it to places that are only rumors to most ants such as "the bathroom" and the mysterious "hallway."
But, as much as she wandered, she always came home. Because Daffodil loved her colony, her sisters and her queen.
She was was good at digging, she was a brave hunter of injured house flies and even spiders. She grasped life with both mandibles and lived with joy and zest. I'd like to share one of her videos. In it she enjoys some sugar water and shares with her sisters. This is how we all should remember her and hold this little ant in our hearts.
For what happens to the children of the colony and what happens to the each of us is the same: as one dies, so dies the other. All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. So we see that there is nothing better than that an ant should rejoice in her colony and in her work.
@barrygoldman1 This is a post from last year— I don’t know exactly what killed her. But she was at least 1.5 years old or so— possibly as much as a year older. Workers live from 8 months to 4 years tops in this species.