Though it is still early March, the spring bird migration is well underway. And so it is time to begin thinking about warmer weather and birds from the tropics traveling to Illinois to breed. The ruby-throated hummingbird is one of many such species. Although our yard will have plenty of flowers for hummingbirds to feed upon after they return from the south, this year I plan to set up a hummingbird feeder. The feeder is filled with clear sugar water (1/4 cup of sugar to 1 cup of water), and it is colored red to attract hummingbirds. The hummingbirds can drink the sugar water through holes in the center of flower-like shapes molded into the feeder’s plastic surface. Several years ago, using wires, I hung a feeder from a hickory tree branch in front of my window. It took the birds a few days to find the feeder, but they soon made frequent stops. Ants also discovered the feeder.
One day I wasn’t seeing hummingbirds, so I watched the ants. Ants frantically ran up and down the tree branch to and from the feeder. Individuals that traveled away from the feeder, up the wire attachment, and up the tree branch, each had swollen abdomens that were transparent and filled with sugar water. Those individuals traveling to the feeder from the tree had normal-sized bodies. Apparently, sugar water was being transported all the way to a colony below ground level. What a Herculean cooperative effort these ants were engaged in, like trying to drain a large swimming pool with a thimble.
Mark Twain also watched ants. In his book A Tramp Abroad, published in 1880, he wrote that: "...the average ant is a sham. I admit his industry, of course; he is the hardest-working creature in the world—when anybody is looking—but his leatherheadedness is the point I make against him. He goes out foraging, he makes a capture, and then what does he do? Go home? No—he goes anywhere but home. He doesn’t know where home is. His home may be only three feet away—no matter, he can’t find it. He makes his capture, as I have said; it is generally something which can be of no sort of use to himself or anybody else; it is usually seven times bigger than it ought to be; he hunts out the awkwardest place to take a hold of it; he lifts it bodily up in the air by main force, and starts; not toward home, but in the opposite direction; not calmly and wisely, but with a frantic haste which is wasteful of his strength; he fetches up against a pebble, and instead of going around it, he climbs over it backward dragging his booty after him, tumbles down the other side, jumps up in a passion, kicks the dust off his clothes, moistens his hands, grabs his property viciously, yanks it this way, then that, shoves it ahead of him a moment, turns tail and tugs it after him another moment, gets madder and madder, then presently hoists it into the air and goes tearing away in an entirely new direction; comes to a weed; it never occurs to him to go around it; no, he must climb it; and he does climb it, dragging his worthless property to the top—which is as bright a thing to do as it would be for me to carry a sack of flour from Heidelberg to Paris by way of Strasburg steeple; when he gets up there he finds that that is not the place; takes a cursory glance at the scenery and either climbs down again or tumbles down, and starts off once more—as usual, in a new direction."
Twain’s careful scientific observations notwithstanding, my ants seemed to know their business. When I removed the feeder to change the water, the ant column continued, but the returning ants went away empty of sugar water. Four hours later, there were somewhat fewer ants traveling the branch trail to the wire loop that previously held the feeder. After a few more hours, there were still many ants traveling the wire-branch trail in search of sugar water, but their numbers seemed to be noticeably decreasing. Apparently, "word" was slowly getting around (most likely a chemical signal) that the rich sugar water was gone. Twenty-four hours later, only a few confused ants still searched for the illusive sugar water. I then filled and hung the feeder, expecting that very soon, the ants would be back, and with hummingbirds also. And so they were.
[Note: This story was originally published in slightly different form in the Summer 2000 issue of Illinois Audubon magazine.]
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