Q1: Describe queen ant or mother ant.
Ans: The queen ant is the only ant who is known as the mother ant. She takes care of all the other ants in the family, and she bites her pair of wings after the wedding flight. She usually takes this flight on a hot summer day. She leaves the nest and flies high in the sky to meet the drone, which is a male ant. She bites the wings after coming to earth again and then lays eggs and does nothing.
Q2: What happens once the cocoons break?
Ans: With the breaking of cocoons, perfect ants come into existence. After that, they are given perfect teaching and training. They learned about their duties from the old ants, such as cleaners, soldiers, workers, boulders, etc. Soldiers train ants to be soldiers, workers teach them to be workers, etc. After the practice of a few weeks or months, they become ready to set out in this big world to work.
Q3: What have humans learned from the ants and what have we not?
Ans: Humans have learned a lot from ants, and still, there are many things that they can learn from these tiny creatures. This includes discipline, a sense of duty, cleanliness, hard work, and taking care of the younger ones at a serious level. But the most important thing to learn is loyalty. It is important to be loyal to the land where we live.
Q4: What happens after the queen ant lays eggs?
Ans: After the laying of the eggs, the eggs grub, hatch, or the larvae come out of it. They are then guarded by the soldier’s ants, cleaned, and fed by the worker ants. Workers are also responsible for their daily exercising, airing, and the sun shining. After three weeks, grubs convert into cocoons and then live without any activity or food for the other three weeks. After the passing of three years, cocoons break and become ants.
Q5: What other creatures live in the anthills and why?
Ans: Insects like greenflies, beetles, lesser breeds, etc, also live in the anthills. Ants allow these to live in their houses for several reasons. Some insects provide sweet juices, and some give pleasant smells. Some only play like the pets of humans. Greenfly is known to be the ant’s cow as they are trained to give honeydew with just a touch to their antennae.
Q6: ‘Perhaps they have, but they have not put their learning to good use’. What qualities should be adopted from Ants?
Ans: The Ants are one of the smallest creatures, yet they can add a lot to humanity. Human beings can learn hard work, dutifulness, and discipline. Love, taking care of the young ones, and loyalty towards land can help individuals and society at large.
Q7: Mention three things we can learn from the ‘tiny teacher’. Give reasons for choosing these items.
Ans: We can learn teamwork from ants as they do their work by sharing and contributing without interference in other’s work. We can learn hard work as ants spend most of their time doing their respective jobs without hesitation. We can learn discipline as ants live a disciplined life and always follow the rules of their group and are loyal towards it.
Q8: Describe the ant’s life briefly.
Ans: Ants are the smallest insects and also the wisest ones. The story of an ant's life sounds almost untrue, but I have watched their daily behaviour closely. This tiny insect is a hardworking and intelligent creature. There are many kinds of ants, but the most common are black or red ones.
Q9. Where do the ants live?
Ans: They live in their comfortable homes called ‘nests’ and ‘anthills’. Each has hundreds of little rooms and passages. In some of these rooms, the queen ant lays eggs. Others are nurseries for the young ones. Workers have their reserved quarters. Some rooms are secure as storehouses for their food. And soldiers have separate barracks.
Q10: How do the queen ants lay eggs?
Ans: The queen is the mother of the entire population of the colony. The queen leaves the nest and goes out to meet a male ant or drone high up in the air. On its return to earth, it gets rid of its wings and then does nothing but lay eggs.
Q11: What qualities of an ant do you wish to inculcate and why?
Ans: No wonder ants are the tiniest insects around us, yet they can teach us to Stead coordinated and systematic strategy for community living. Ants are social insects that live in a community of co-existence where every member plays their role in perfection without fuss. So, I will try to inculcate the behaviour of ants.
Q12: In what ways is an ant’s life peaceful?
Ans: The ants live in peace because each one does its share of work honestly, wisely and bravely. They don’t interfere in the work given to others. They never fight in their group.
Q13: How do ants interact with each other?
Ans: An ant uses its feelers or antennae to ‘talk’ to other ants by passing messages through them to watch a row of ants moving up or down the wall. Each greets all the others coming from the opposite direction by teaching their feelers.
Q14: “An ant’s life is very peaceful” Explain.
Ans: Each does its share of work intelligently and bravely and never fights with other members of the group. No workers has ever tried to live in a soldier’s house, no soldiers has ever gone out searching for food. No workers, soldiers, or cleaners have ever harmed grubs. Thus, in this way, an ant's life is very peaceful.
Q15: How eggs are turned into ants?
Ans: Eggs are hatched, and grubs come out. Soldiers guard them. Workers feed and clean them and also carry them about daily for airing, exercise and sunshine. Two or three weeks later, grubs become cocoons and lie without food or activity for three weeks more. Then the cocoons break, and perfect ants appear. New ants learn their duties from old ants as workers, soldiers, builders, cleaners, etc. After a few weeks of training, the small ants are ready to go out into the big world of work.
