After the "Chinese New Year's Eve", the official arrival of the "Spring Festival" was announced. For ants, the "Spring Festival" is a festival where they can go out in the spring, and it is also what they consider to be the beginning of a new year.

But it's not just ants that wake up from winter. There are also a large number of insects that have been "sleeping" for the winter, and they will also wake up in the spring. And those species that don't survive the winter also leave them with hope – a large number of hardy eggs.

Everyone thinks that insects will wake up naturally when the weather is warm, but in fact, the awakening of overwintering insects does not only depend on temperature, temperature is only one of the most important conditions.

First, insects need plenty of water to wake up.

Insects need to drink enough water before waking up in spring, because overwintering insects have excreted most of the water in their bodies in advance in order to reduce the freezing point of their bodies and avoid freezing to death before wintering, and they will physiologically consume some water during winter.

In this way, the insect loses too much water in the body, which hinders the normal physiological and metabolic activities. So, even if the weather is already warm, these wintering insects cannot resume their activities.

At this time, they need to absorb as much water as possible from the soil through various organs that can absorb water, such as the epidermis, respiratory system, and digestive system, and wait until the water needed for physical activity is enough.

If the spring is too dry and does not absorb enough moisture, it will cause a large number of overwintering insects to die. According to a survey, the overwintering mortality rate of corn borer is generally about 50-60%, and more than half of them die due to excessive water loss in spring. It has to be said that the insects that survive the harsh winter often die before the spring rains, which has to be said to be a tragedy.

Relatively speaking, the fate of the eggs is much better, the overwintering eggs of the cotton three-spotted blind bug, if the air humidity is above 60%, can hatch in early May, if the moisture is not enough or it does not rain for a long time, it will not hatch, and will not hatch until it rains.

Second, insects wake up from hibernation and need food stimulation.

The overwintering and waking time of insects varies greatly depending on the species. Generally speaking, the number of generations that occur in a year is less and the food is simple, and the winter is earlier; If there are many generations or complex eating habits, the winter is late.

In addition to their living habits, the time of awakening is closely related to the growing season of the food they need.

Aphids that spend the winter on eggs break through the egg shell and come out to suck the sap of the buds as soon as the desired host plant begins to germinate. Therefore, the germination time of the host becomes a signal for the aphid to hatch.

Similarly, aphid-eating flies, which specialize in eating aphids, wake up as soon as the aphids show up and lay their eggs in the aphid colony.

Butterflies, bees and other insects that love flowers and nectar only spread their wings and fly when the spring buds are in full bloom.

The small beetles, leafhoppers, bugs and other adults sleeping among the dead leaves and grass have a simple diet, and as long as the weather is warm, the spring rain is wet, and when the trees are rejuvenated, they will begin to move.

This spring the weather was good, and the rain fell early, not much, but enough to wake up a large number of flora and fauna. As the weeds begin to germinate, the flowers begin to bloom, and the insects become active when they have plenty of water and a potential source of food.

Scarabs, needleworms, unicorns, ladybugs, leaf beetles, etc. began to burrow out of hibernation sites, beetles, blind bugs, flower bugs are foraging everywhere, wheat aphids and other aphids have climbed on the delicate new plants of plants, cabbage insects, ground tigers and other butterfly moth larvae have not yet grown wings, they are lying on the new leaves to feast.

At this time, the ants begin to leave the cat's nest for a winter.

After the beginning of spring, ants have a lot of work, especially in the "waterfront city".

As the forefront of the winter defensive battle, "Waterfront City" successfully resisted many enemy attacks. However, in general, due to seasonal and terrain restrictions, the strength advantage of the Paving Ant Barbarian Army has not been able to be brought into play, and the overall scale of the battle between the two sides and the number of casualties are not large.

Eventually, the enemy gave up on continuing the siege of Waterfront Castle and began to move. The protagonist suspects that they have turned to attack the other side nests. However, winter blocks the connection between the different nests, leaving the protagonist without a source of information, and his eyes are black.

Spring has now begun, although most of the land is still muddy and impassable, and there are still many shady areas where the snow has not melted. However, the ants are already able to go far on the road.

The protagonist immediately sends multiple teams of couriers to several nearby secondary nests to get an update on their situation. There is also a team of messengers who will rush back to Dongyang Castle to deliver instructions for the local garrison to bring in a batch of supplies that the protagonist urgently needs.

In fact, the fastest way to contact is that the protagonist rides Xiaoqing II to run to the target location in person, but it was supposed to be a good spring, so I asked the Flying Knights to lead the Flying Knights to bring Xiaoqing II over, but there is no movement yet, maybe it was delayed by something. The protagonist can only settle for the next best thing and send a large number of messengers.

Most of the ants, both worker and soldier, are sent out by the protagonist to search for food.

After a winter of consumption and the "Chinese New Year's Eve" banquet, the food stock of "Waterfront City" has dropped to a dangerous level.

There are also a large number of corruption in some of these stocks, such as dried banyan fruits, which has exacerbated the food crisis.

Fortunately, in the spring wilderness, there is no shortage of food.

Ants can catch insects that survive the winter, although many are skinny and have few taels of flesh.

The most popular are the various green worms and caterpillars, which hatch from the eggs and munch on the leaves of the grass all the time, and their bodies swell rapidly. Ants like the delicate flesh of these bugs and begin to hunt them in large numbers near their nests.

Some insect eggs hatch late, and ants are good at spotting whether there are eggs in the ground from the tiny marks on the ground. These unhatched eggs are highly nutritious, and whether they are roasted or added to soup porridge, they have a taste that is better than eggs.

A plant-based vegetarian diet is also essential, and the shoots and flowers of various plants and trees in the spring can be eaten as long as they are free of toxins. With the introduction of clay pots, ants are also happy to cook these vegetarian foods instead of eating them raw, as in the past, when they can only digest a small fraction of the plant fiber that is eaten raw, which is very wasteful.

In addition to the nectar source of aphids, ants also have an additional sweet food in spring - nectar. Ants compete with bees for scarce nectar, the former being a luxury, and the latter being equally nutritious.

The spring of abundance suddenly opened its arms to the survivors of winter.