Post by Wood~Ant on Jul 27, 2011 7:29:19 GMT
After seeing quite literally several thousand new queens and their male consorts fly off from dozens of nests on our estate, mostly Lasius flavus and L. niger, where we see large numbers of alate males and females depart from every year; and they have 2 or sometimes 3 flights per year at around this time of mid to late July, Jen and myself can't help but wonder where they all go to? 
An hour or so after the flights we get a few dozen queens landing and removing their wings, yet there should be hundreds on the ground going off the numbers that took to the air.
As for all the males, we never find one, either alive or dead; so what happens to them is a complete mystery, as there are always a lot sent out from every nest that has a flight
From the vast number of niger flights yesterday one would expect to find lots of newly mated queens wandering around this morning; but not a one can be found, so where are they all?
Many will have fallen prey to other ants, spiders and birds; but all we found was 3 niger queens, and no sign of any others. What an enigma this is, as it baffles me that so many young queens can vanish in so short a time, so many have evidently found nesting sites or have simply been killed.
When you think about it, the ratio of successful queens founding new nests has to be low, or else we would be overrun with ants, as on our estate alone there are 3 species (Lasius flavus, Lasius niger and Myrmica rubra) with flavus being the most abundant in terms of nests and large colonies.
So by collecting some new queens to raise them in captivity can be seen as saving them, as in the wild their chances of survival are extremely poor with a high mortality rate, so you at least give them some chance of having an almost normal life, even if they are kept as pets or for study
An hour or so after the flights we get a few dozen queens landing and removing their wings, yet there should be hundreds on the ground going off the numbers that took to the air.
As for all the males, we never find one, either alive or dead; so what happens to them is a complete mystery, as there are always a lot sent out from every nest that has a flight
From the vast number of niger flights yesterday one would expect to find lots of newly mated queens wandering around this morning; but not a one can be found, so where are they all?
Many will have fallen prey to other ants, spiders and birds; but all we found was 3 niger queens, and no sign of any others. What an enigma this is, as it baffles me that so many young queens can vanish in so short a time, so many have evidently found nesting sites or have simply been killed.
When you think about it, the ratio of successful queens founding new nests has to be low, or else we would be overrun with ants, as on our estate alone there are 3 species (Lasius flavus, Lasius niger and Myrmica rubra) with flavus being the most abundant in terms of nests and large colonies.
So by collecting some new queens to raise them in captivity can be seen as saving them, as in the wild their chances of survival are extremely poor with a high mortality rate, so you at least give them some chance of having an almost normal life, even if they are kept as pets or for study
