Casting a Carpenter Ant Colony with Molten Aluminum (Cast #042​)

A cast of a carpenter ant colony is made using molten aluminum to fill the tunnels and chambers. The resulting cast consists of a main shaft with long, irregularly shaped chambers extending outward and mostly concentrated near the colony entrance. If you've seen my fire ant colony casting video, I think you'll be very surprised at the amazing difference between the colony structures of these two types of ants. The finshed cast has a very strange and interesting shape and is 31" deep, with a max width of 18", and a weight of 3.5 lbs. Until I started this project I was under the impression that carpenter ants only lived in wood. When I first noticed these ants with their underground colonies, and identified them as being in the camponotus genus (carpenter ants), I was pretty surprised. Some carpenter ant species do nest in the ground. The ants that made this colony are from the species Camponotus castaneus.