Ant nest made entirely from ANTS! | Natural World: Ant Attack | BBC Earth

It's day two and the mass evacuation is underway. The ants march along well-worn tracks, originally the foraging trails between the old nest and the swarm front, but now the main roads along which queen and colony will pass. Their trek is about the length of two football pitches laid end to end and they're not traveling empty-handed. Each ant carries a larva or a pupa hung below her body, the equivalent of us running a marathon while carrying a sack of potatoes and not stopping for a rest. The entire emigration can take up to three days. It seems chaotic but every ant in this extraordinary melee knows exactly what she's doing. Giant soldiers with their massive jaws line the route so the workers with their precious cargo can travel safely along a living avenue. They're passing at a rate of 250,000 ants an hour. Some unwittingly carry infiltrators. Even tiny ants are host to even tinier mites. The invading army is building in numbers. Traveling with her subjects is the queen. At two inches long, she's the largest ant in the world and she's a new queen. When her mother's colony grew too large and divided, half the workers switched their allegiance and now accompany her on her first emigration. Her enormous bulk has been coaxed along the trail and now she takes her place at the heart of the nest. The queen is in her palace and what a palace it's become. It's a living bivouac. A nest made entirely of ants. All its internal walls are made of ants. All its corridors and chambers constructed of living bricks. And when they're all assembled in their new stronghold, they form one of the largest concentrations of ants on earth. Protected by these living walls are the nurseries where wave after wave of brood carriers deliver their load.