Hard, I worked overtime late last night, and I can only do one shift.

- I'm the dividing line -

Although the ants have a very strong sense of collectivism, everything is based on the collective interest. But in the face of the additional supply of scarce resources such as high-grade food, the male ants are still very receptive.

As for whether the effect of buying people's hearts that the protagonist thinks is effective, it remains to be tested by time.

The most popular of the premium foods is not those rich in fat and protein, but aphid honeydew. As one of the few foods with a high sugar content that ants can obtain, it is indeed a very delicious drink if you don't consider its origin.

Even the protagonist, who is accustomed to drinking sweet water from Cola, is quickly conquered by it, and even after learning about the production method of honeydew, the protagonist, who has always had a slight habit of cleanliness, did not abandon it.

Speaking of this sweet craving, there is another interesting thing.

In the 40s of the 20th century, human physiologists confirmed through a test that human beings are the only higher animals on earth that love sweets, and there is no other creature that loves sweets like humans. Scientists believe that species like ants prefer foods high in sugar simply because they are higher in calories.

But in this world, the protagonist, as an ant, can feel the sweetness. He has communicated with Roll, Lan Bofei, Xiao Mi and Mulan, and confirmed that the other party also likes honeydew, more because of its taste. The protagonist is convinced that the ants of this world can taste and love sweetness.

Returning to the fact that human beings love sweetness, from a biological point of view, the reason for human sweetness may be that sweetness is the first taste of the world that humans taste from breast milk, and since then it has become the energy source of life. It may also be because of the high-calorie characteristics of sweets, which allowed primitive people to survive better, thus engrave this taste preference into their genes.

The history of human sweetness is actually a history of human evolution.

The sweetener that humans were able to use at the earliest, like ants today, was a sweetness that came from nature. Unlike ants, which rely heavily on honeydew and fruits, the earliest sweetness of humans came from honey.

The Sumerians in the 20th century BC were grateful for this, believing that honey was a gift from the gods. Although the relationship between nectar, honey and bees was completely unclear at the time, the miraculous curative properties of honey were soon discovered, and a cuneiform inscription was engraved on the stele that honey could be used as a medicinal ointment. Later, the ancient Chinese also discovered this secret, and Chinese medicine used honey and pills to neutralize the bitter taste and make the medicine taste sweet.

4,000 years ago, when words were scarce, "honey" symbolized all words with a sweet taste, and became a universal compliment, as long as it was associated with "good" and "beautiful", it was described as "honey", and the Bible describes the land of abundance as "flowing with honey and milk".

Sumerian clay engravings show that the bridegroom is "as sweet as honey," the bride's kiss is "more fragrant than honey," and the cave is "full of honey." But they don't know that honey is actually the vomit of bees, just as honeydew is the excrement of aphids—nature is so magical and mischievous.

In the North American continent, where bees have not appeared for a long time, the heavens have given another sweet gift - maple syrup.

Around 1600 AD, Indian warriors chopped their battle axes into maple trees with pentagonal maple leaves, delighted by the slight sweetness of the sap coming out of the trunks. They used their axes to cut out a small wedge-shaped piece of wood, propped it on the edge of the trunk, and used a piece of elm bark as a container underneath to catch the sap from the maple tree. The low temperature at night causes the moisture in the sap to form a thin layer of ice on the surface, which is the most primitive purification. Repeatedly, the color of the sap becomes more and more golden, and the texture becomes thicker and thicker, and finally it becomes maple syrup. The Indians kneaded maple syrup into bear fat or mixed it into corn flour to make dry food for long journeys.

The Europeans who discovered the New World also discovered the secret of maple sugar, but their purification principle was the opposite of that of the Indians. Maple sap is heated in a bearing container, and as the water evaporates, the syrup gradually thickens, and generally 40 kg of maple sap can be processed into 1 kg of maple sugar.

It wasn't until 1700 A.D. that Europeans first tasted "sugar" in the true sense of the word, cane sugar from the East. At that time, sucrose was a more expensive thing than a luxury.

In 5000 B.C., the ancient Indians knew that sugar cane was squeezed into juice and boiled over fire. The clumpy dark substance that appears at the bottom of the pot is the most primitive sucrose. The Chinese of the Tang Dynasty added lime, loess and egg white to the boiled sugar water to absorb impurities, so that the closest to the modern meaning of "white sugar" was born.

By the 18th century, cocoa powder was a popular flavoring powder, and chocolate was invented on its basis.

In the development of sweetness, human beings have been tireless. When human beings are no longer satisfied with the natural sweetness, they have begun to invent and use synthetic sweeteners, and more than 50 kinds have been developed so far.

Unlike high-tech humans, ants can now use only natural sources of sweetness, but very few species. Compared with fruit juice with an unstable supply, unstable sweetness and poor preservation, it is normal for ants to prefer aphid honeydew with high sugar content and a stable supply of three seasons a year.

In the past, in "Dongyang City", the aphid community there was not large. Although aphids multiply rapidly, their lives are short, and they are very susceptible to large losses due to factors such as cold, heat, and natural predators. These have limited the expansion of aphid herds.

On top of that, grazing and protecting aphids requires a lot of ant hands, and it takes labor to move the aphids back underground in bad weather, move them out in good weather, and fight ladybugs when they encounter them. The same number of ants that were sent to farm, gather, hunt or raise mealworms would get more calories in food.

For this reason, the protagonists who are focused on developing their forces are unable to send more ant hands to take care of the herd, which also limits the growth of the herd.

Now, when it comes to the main nest "Qingqiu City", everything is different. The main nest is the most important thing to do, and due to the limited foraging range of the ants, the environment around "Qingqiu City" is difficult to supply all the food for the ant population by hunting and gathering alone, so grazing aphids has become a profitable option. After all, you only need to work to harvest honeydew steadily.

Although this harvest will be reduced due to the wilting of the plant due to the overabundance of aphids. However, the ants in the main nest will always have a sharp decline in the ant population due to war and other reasons, and although the aphid herd will also decrease slightly due to the decrease in protectors, the total output of honeydew will be higher than the demand of the remaining ant population.

So in the main nest, there is no shortage of honeydew, and many worker and soldier ants have a high percentage of honeydew in their diets.