Frozen Ants...

For Noah's 2ND birthday my sister Janna bought him an Ant Farm. I was sooo excited he got one! I had an ant farm when I was younger, and I've always wanted my boys to have an ant farm of their own too! My sister noticed over the summer, during one of her visits, that Noah was fascinated by the tiny crawlers. She figured he might like to watch the ants dig and tunnel their way through the ant farm habitat. About four weeks ago I mailed our coupon for the free ants we needed to fill the farm. They arrived in the mail 2 weeks ago. Noah worked with me and together we got their habitat ready for their introduction. Before we could put the ants into the farm, the instructions warned that we should put them in the refrigerator for 15 minutes so they would calm down a bit and not be upset and be tempted to bite us. I misread the instructions- and instead of putting the ants in the refrigerator, I put them in the freezer for 15 minutes! I had a bit of a difficult time shaking the ants into the ant farm; they were all in one big frozen ant clump! With the help of some tweezers though, I managed to get them all in there with out doing much damage- some of the ants may have had to adapt to missing a leg or antennae, one was even missing a head- a few fell off in the process of putting them in the farm. It was difficult! Anyhow, I caught my mistake not long after I put the ants in; I didn't think it would make that big of a difference though since the freezer doesn't feel that much cooler than our refrigerator. The instructions said the ants may be a bit "sluggish" after removing them from the refrigerator and that it may take up to 24 hours for them to move around normally. Our ants were completely "sluggish", in fact they were lifeless, but I tried to be optimistic and hope that by some miracle they would suddenly come to life in 24 hours. Isn't there an Ant God??? Well, a day passed, and then another- I gave them the benefit of the doubt and waited for nearly 72 hours in hopes they would revive, but nothing happened. Not one ant survived the freezer frost! I had to go back in with the tweezers and pick them out of the habitat- no sense in disappointing Noah anymore with dead ants. Don't worry though- I ordered some more ants- they should be here any day in the mail. I don't think I'll be making the mistake of freezing the ants again.