The release of the queens
Several weekends ago, my wife asked me to weed in our backyard. I obliged, but on my way to get some equipment, I noticed something very unusual in the backyard. The carpenter ant colony was releasing their queens and males.
First, I am not a myrmecologist and my knowledge of ants and carpenter ants comes from reading several books and observing them in my backyard. Therefore, some of the information below may be incorrect. If you know some of it to be false, please let me know and I will gladly correct it.
To be honest, I’m not sure if all of them were queens, all were males, or if there was a mix, but I suspect the latter. Their clearly were smaller winged ants and larger ones. I watched and photographed the phenomenon for a good hour. While in my opinion none of the shots are great on their own, altogether the tell a very interesting story.
In the picture above, you can see a number of the winged ants (can’t say for sure whether they are queens or males) at the base of the landscaping timbers preparing to leave. Most of them (or in the case of the males – all of them) will die within the next several days. Of the queens, only a couple will likely make it – if that.
Here are some more shots of the crowd waiting to take their chances.
One interesting thing that I noticed in the shots, is that some of them appear to be eating something just before leaving. I am not sure of this, but it certainly does appear to be the case. In this shot, it looks like the ant is eating something.
In the following shot, it looks like it is finishing. At least, whatever it has there is less of it.
Finally, in this shot it looks like it has finished.
I’m not entirely sure what the case is here. Perhaps they are eating a meal provided by the nest before their long journey?
Of course, all of these vital elements of the nests future are not left unguarded. Among the new kings and queens are a number of soldier ants.
The queens would line up on the landscaping timbers, and then make their final jump from their nest. Some of them succeeded in taking off and flying a good distance (sometimes into my face), while the wings of others were clearly not ready yet. A number of them landed on a plant in front of the nest. They would take flying leaps and land on one of the leaves, then climb on to the leaf, travel to the very end, and take another leap from the top.
You can tell that the effort was exhausting for them, as many of them were still weak.
After climbing to on top of the leaf, they next would make their way to the very end.
Once at the end of the leaf, each of them would open its wings and make its leap of faith. Some of them would fall to the ground or a different leaf below, while others would finally succeed at flying.
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Tags: ant, carpenter ant, insect, macro, photography