will the flights come soon?

[tuck]

hello again!

I wanted to let everyone know that we had a brief thunderstorm/shower for like 20 minutes and then it stopped! I saw on the news that the weather tomorrow afternoon will be cooler & less humid. are these good conditions for a mating flight? or do you think it should rain all day the day before? I don't see that happening soon as there is an EXTREME drought going on in the SE US right now!

Also, will it be clearly evident when the flights are happening? or will I have to go find some colonies and look around them? because I am having a VERY hard time finding many colonies in my yard except 1 under a stone with very few workers. I don't think that colony has any winged ants, though. But I'm not positive because it is at the edge of some plants & a few leaves from last fall and I can't see the rest of the colony. But I will keep searching!

thanks

[Jenny]

Hi,

How the flight started here was; we had an extremely heavy rainfall for about 2 hours, and it was very humid, actually just as I was leaving work at about 2pm Within 30 seconds you were soaked, sort of downpour.

I took the dog out at about 4pm that afternoon. There was no wind and the sun was pelting some heat out. I noticed on our concrete slabs at the front, a lone queen wandering and searching for a nesting spot, minus wings! That is what alerted me to maybe others. The flights had happened and I had missed it

All the entrance holes were very wide, and the ants, flavus and nigers were over active, which is always a sign.


At 5pm, the winged ants were everywhere they could get. They were even crawling up the lampost for a better take off! Taking photos, they were even crawling all over me! Their wings making that low buzzing sound like Crane flies in your room. Half an hour later, there were flavus queens and niger queens everywhere.

From a top view they were difficult to tell apart in the bright sunshine and in a rush to catch one, you had to turn the flavus upside down to spot the richer yellow thorax in the light, they are also slightly smaller on reflection.

The following day there was not one in sight, and I have only seen the odd winged one since. But, the flights can continue at different times, as they don't all fly at once. So keep your eyes open on those nests