Welcome to Flying Ant Day 2023, when all those lovely winged ants take to the air. I was walking to work the other day during the mass flights, and there were swarms of them on the ground and up in the air. It took me longer to get to work as I was trying not to tread on any. Many times I had to gently brush flying ants off from my person.
Why are There Flying Ants?
For those unfamiliar as to why there are these countless flying ants during the summer months I’ll give a brief explanation.
Every year established ant colonies (generally those big enough to be able to afford the food resources to dedicated to producing the larger (in the case of queens) flying ants) will release many (sometimes hundreds or even thousands) of winged ants. Look closely and you’ll see that there are two types of flying ant, males and females. The quickest way to determine which is which is simply by the size of the ants. Male ant bodies tend to be the same size, or smaller, than workers, whereas the winged queens are much larger.
These ants will fly from the nest and mate, either on the ground or on the wing. Once mated, and the queen may mate with more than one male, but not males from her own colony, the males die and the queens will look for a suitable nesting site. She will also remove her wings as they are no longer needed. She will dig a small burrow in the ground, seal herself in and lay some eggs.
Several months later, the successful queen will see her first workers emerge. Now a new ant colony has been founded.
To be honest, the above is a much simplified account of what happens. There are some species who do things slightly differently. For more see https://www.antnest.co.uk/ant-colony-birth/
My Captive Colony Updates
Myrmica rubra
These red stinging ants have been very busy this year, with their foraging tank teeming with workers hunting for food. The queen has been laying a large amount of eggs, and as with previous years there have been winged males and females present, though mainly males.
Lasius niger
This colony has grown much larger this year when many hundreds of ants being born into the nest. In fact I am going to have to look at providing them with a larger nesting box next year. I am considering purchasing a fish tank. filling it with coarse sand and encouraging them to move into that.
Yes, it does means I wont’ be able to see into all of the nest as easily as I can now with the traditional set ups, but it will provide the ants with a much larger and more natural nesting opportunity. I have done this before with a Lasius niger colony, and they went on to produce the largest and most successful colony I have ever had. So large in fact that they had to relocate into my garden to live wild as it were.