In most stories, ants always seem to be the model of how one should be: industrious, focused, and dedicated to the community. However, studies show that the colony or hive isn't that harmonious after all.

During the last International Union for the Study of Social Insects, various insect biologists converge and talk about the updates or results of their studies regarding the insect kingdom. There are some who are ant people, termite people, and some wasp people. Among the groups there are still some sub-classifications. For example, within the ant people, there are those who study only sex ratios, dominance, war, neurobiology, recognition, Caste, invasion, jaws speed, so on.

Some news from the conference include how smaller species of exploding ants - most likely suicidally - combust than the larger ones; how some worker species poke holes in their nest to let the air in; the way Japanese honeybees kill invading wasps by swarming them and beating their wings to generate heat, etc. However, the most surprising find was that some termites communicate the size of wood they are feeding by knocks, bumps, clicks, and wiggles. If it sounded like it was a small wood piece, the termites would swarm all over it take it back to the colony.

After the conference, people are increasingly realizing that colony life is just as bad as our lives. Proof? Daughters look out for their own agendas, deception is more of the rule rather than the exception, some sisters cheat the system by producing eggs of their own - so workers police and starve them, the Queen sometimes beat workers to submission or death if they fail her standards.

We can hear the grasshopper now, happily playing his violin in the fall; and the ant feverishly devising a way to obliterate the other colony.