Ant Colony Intruder: The Bumble Flower Beetle

I put together a really cool ant colony today for my class.  Awesome!  I found it at the Goodwill for $10 and it was totally worth it.  It has all these different pods connected by tubes.  I filled them with soil, grass, sand, and some moss.  For water I soaked cotton balls, and for food I did apples, and cinnamon toast crunch.

After a lot of looking I finally found a ton of ants under some bricks in my garden.  I must have looked about 6 years old out there with my spoon and tweezers.  I was able to find a few of the larvae, but boy those little guys are quick at hauling them away as soon as you get close.

I added the ants to the colony, the kids thought it was amazing.  About an hour or two later I glance at the main pod and there is this huge furry beetle crawling around in there!  Aghh! How did I miss him?  It was hard to tell if the ants were attacking it, or if they were attacking him.  I looked it up and I'm pretty sure its a bumble flower beetle.  A furry ground beetle that looks like a bee.  They are vegetarian, but I'm sure their jaws could do some damage to my poor little ants.   I am going to try to take him out tomorrow, but it won't be easy to disconnect it without the whole thing tumbling.   By the end of the day I didn't see many ants left in there.  Don't worry, I trucked out to my yard again and abducted some more.