What are these ants doing?

debodun

8 months ago

last modified: 8 months ago

I went out on my deck and saw ants swarming around the back door. Some are winged. I never saw this before.

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Comments (5)

Jalisco Pine
8 months ago
last modified: 8 months ago
It is likely the ant species yearly nuptial flight, in which the males and the females (virgin queens) reproduce (i.e. female is sterilized and makes an ant colony sensu stricto). The virgin queens lose their wings after mating, while the males eventually die afterwards. Then nesting process begins. Very cool sight to see!!

- Jalisco Pine (I am not an insect expert)
debodun thanked Jalisco Pine
rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
8 months ago
Jalisco is not an insect expert, but Jalisco is absolutely right! They are not termites, which some might warn you about. You just witnesses this annual exhibition when plain ol ants don wings in order to expand their species.

If you lived in the south, you’d see Fire ants do this…not a pleasant thought, to say the least!
debodun thanked rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
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I would have thought you were joking around if of course I didn't know you were serious. I am constantly impressed with the knowledge of people on this site. Now if only I could get 4 or 5 of you to come on over and show me what I'm doing wrong and how to get rid or contain every pest, I'd have the best garden around! I'm not too concerned about the aphids at the moment...not on my corn anyway. It seems like the plants are big enough to handle a small number of aphids. I just have to go home today and put mineral oil on the silks. Never tried it before so wish me luck and correct me if my plan is not right. The silks appeared about 6 or 7 days ago. I am going to apply half a dropper (per GW poster's instructions) of mineral oil on each ear's silks. I don't plan on reapplying the ineral oil later b/c I am affraid of doing more harm than good by overdoing it. I can't remember ever having too many ears that were worm free so hopefully I can make that happen this time around.
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I saw a documentary on ants by some famous ant scientist. Ants also secrete a pheremone where they walk and that is how the soldier ants know where to go- to bring food to the queen etc. If you watch ants they form trails- patterns that they all follow. If you put down something to distract them such as lavender oil, black pepper- something with a strong lasting smell they will get to that place and loose the pheremone scent and turn around. You will then see some very confused ants. I don't know about the whole aphid thing but I do know this is fact. So- if you really feel the need to get rid of the ants- experiment with this and see what happens. I tried this when I had an infestation of these tiny ants which happened to be in an external modem for the phone.It was so gross but I still had a hard time killing these little creatures carrying eggs trying to protect them when they were disturbed. So out came the lavender oil and away they went.Anyway I have millions of tiny ants in the garden this year and I wondered if they were somewhere in the chain of disaster I'm experiencing. See my post on bugs, bugs, bugs!
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They are active on sunny winter days when the entire colony will be concentrated inside the top of the mound enjoying the warnth of the winter sun heating up the soil of the mound. I take advantage of this fact by walking around my pasture with a shovel in the late afternoon of a sunny day when it is forecast to freeze that evening. I'll dig and scatter the mound, slinging the ants as far as I can toss them. Any ants that can't make it back underground before it frost are dead. It usually just takes 1 or 2 visits to a mound to get rid of it. This is the method I have been using for years to rid my 16 acre pasture of fire ants, since I don't trust using pesticides on food that my livestock will be eating.
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Anna Devane
8 months ago
Hmmmm I thought winged ants swarmed in late spring - early summer? I’m surprised they are doing this in August.
Fori
8 months ago
I think it depends on the ant species. We tend to overgeneralize ant lifestyles even though there is a huge amount of diversity between species in just about everything they do.

The ants in my area (I don't know what they are but they are innocuous) swarm any time of year after a gentle rain. And you never see wingless individuals joining in.
djacob Z6a SE WI
8 months ago
Extremely interesting thread!

debra

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What are these ants doing?

Comments (5)

Jalisco Pine

rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7

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Anna Devane

Fori

djacob Z6a SE WI

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