First queen wasp

The first queen wasp of the year got herself trapped in the conservatory. She was cold and calm, so I decided to give her a session with the white bowl. I held her in a tissue and placed her onto the bowl and she posed nicely. After a few photos, with me breathing onto her, she warmed up, started grooming her antennae and flew onto the window, and I let her go.
 The only overwintering stage of social wasps are queens. Males died at the end of the autumn after mating, and the workers a bit earlier. Their large paper nests are now empty, as the life cycle of social wasps lasts for less than one year. Queens overwinter in buildings or other dry places, but the strong wind and mild temperatures have probably helped stir this one out of her hiding place.
 The 'anchor mark' on her face identifies her as a common wasp, Vespula vulgaris.

Side view showing how hairy she is.

And a little grooming of antennae before flying off.

Catching the wind

The last couple of weeks have witnessed increased activity of garden ants. It is the season when winged ants (males and queens) take to the air forming swarms. Today I noticed groups of queens emerging from a nest in the garden. The queens climbed over the plants, warmed up their wing muscles and took to the air. They often land straight away unless they can get high enough and ride the breeze. This was that this winged ant was doing, with head and antennae outstretched, it checked if it was the right time to fly. The dark clouds in the background are also typical of flying ant days, as the prefer stormy, warm weather to emerge.
The lucky ones will mate in the air and come back to the ground, lose their wings and find a suitable site to start a nest. Many will perish though, eaten by birds or spiders.
 If you notice flying ants where you live, you can submit your record to the Flying Ant Survey, organised by the Society of Biology. It only needs a couple of minutes to fill the form.

Queens and kings on the wing!

We've enjoyed a whole week of warm weather and no rain. Today, garden ant queen, Lasius niger,  that had already lost its wings, was running on the pavement, and on my local wildlife garden, nervous workers on the path made me look closer. When new winged queens and male ants are ready to emerge, workers follow them run frantically about. And emerging they were, for at least the third time this year, many queens and smaller numbers of male ants. Some queens were trying, unsuccessfully to fly straight from the ground, others, like the one above, reached for a higher point, to get a better chance to take to the wing.

Winged ant queen, Lasius niger, revving its wings on the ground

The couple of queens above started climbing a fence post while the workers followed them. Although many winged ants will eventually take to the sky, where they find their mates, a Zygiella x-notata web hung with entangled winged ants on top of this fence post. That spider is going to have a super dinner tonight.

 I have never seen flying ants this late in the year, have you seen any winged ants recently? The Society of Biology is carrying out a Flying ant Survey, where you can submit your records.

Birds and ant swarms

In July and August, typically in sunny days after rains, swarms of reproductive Black Garden Ants (Lasius niger) - winged queens and males - emerge from their nest to mate and start new colonies. Workers also come out en masse and run around the entrance of the nest, looking agitated. I had often noticed this and wondered why do workers did this, until yesterday, watching a Blackbird feeding on the winged ants coming out of their nests, realised why. The Blackbird run close to the entrance, fetched a winged ant and run away. The bird repeated this several times and was obviously being stung or sprayed by the ants around the nest, but still wanted to feed and its back-and-fro behaviour was evidence of the - at least partial - success of the frantic workers keeping predators at bay. Winged ant have many predators. Some casually feeding on the winged ones, others opportunistically making use of a plentiful, although ephemeral, bonanza. A range of birds fall in the latter category, starlings and sparrows feed on the winged ants - sometimes using fly-catcher techniques - and seagulls have been seen feeding on them up in the sky. While reading a paper on this, I remembered that last year, on the day the ants emerged, I looked up in the sky and saw many small flying things and thought they might be the flying ants. When I looked more closely I saw they were seagulls, and was surprised at how many there were, well over a hundred, soaring very high up. I took a shot (below) and forgot about it. They were most likely feeding on the winged ants that had been carried high by thermals in their swarming mating flight.

Seagull flock feeding on swarming ants (26/07/10)

This is the nest in the bottom right hand corner of the top photo

Workers around a nest with winged ants emerging (26/07/10)

Reference

James Baird and Andrew J. Meyerriecks (1965). Birds Feeding on an Ant Mating Swarm. The Wilson Bulletin, 77 (1), 89-91.
Gilbert S. Grant (1992) Opportunistic Foraging on Swarming Ants by Gulls, Shorebirds, and Grackles. The Chat, 56, 80-82.

Queen ant makes spider dinner

I have come across queen garden ants (Lasius niger) for a week. The first one, a wingless one wandering on the garden checking every little crack on the cement eager to start digging her nest. She was quick and the light conditions weren't ideal, so, reluctantly, I moved her to a white bowl for a portrait (above). Yesterday, queens and males were emerging en masses from nests on the side of the street pavements in the afternoon, ready to start their nuptial flights.
The males are similar in size to workers, the queens, double their size and with a much larger abdomen.

Male garden ant

 I even got a mating pair, with the female dragging the male about and both flying away:

Mating ants (the male's antenna can be seen on the right hand side of the queen)

The queen ants will usually mate once in this flight and then land and dig their nests and live underground the rest of their long lives, the males will die shortly after. I say the queens, but I should have said the lucky queens. Most of them will actually die before they hit the ground again, eaten by swifts, swallows, gulls or sparrows. Others will contribute to a spider bonanza. Hundreds of aphids and some ants could be seen yesterday and today covering the webs of the missing sector spider (Zygiella x-notata) on railings. One queen wandered on my conservatory wall and fell on the disorganised cobweb of a Steatoda bipunctata spider, who quickly approached the ant (maybe biting it?) and retreated to the corner of its web. A few minutes later the queen had stopped struggling, and the spider came out for his dinner.

Steatoda bipunctata with dinner

The spider drags the queen ant to its retreat (notice the screw head for scale).

Emergence of Winged ants

For a couple of weeks now, sunny spells after showers bring out a nervous anticipation in ant colonies. The workers come out en masse and run frantically around the colony entrance holes, often in cracks on street pavements. I have stopped a couple of times to watch this but so far no sign of winged queens and males. Yesterday though, we got the first glimpse of emergence of winged ants (Black Garden Ant, Lasius niger). Emergence happens during July and August and sometimes is very synchronic around the country. Workers seem to keep them in, while they stand high on their front legs, as if sniffing the air with their antennae, appearing to check that everything will be fine for their reproductive brothers and sisters. They have to sort out predators - sparrows and many other insect eating birds love them - during their mating flight. Queens will mate and then find a suitable hole where to dig their first colony. They might live for over a decade, sheltered in their nest taken care of by their daughters. Males will die shortly after mating.

Your majesties are back

I had a walk through Pearson Park Wildlife Garden in the afternoon. It was sunny and mild and I was hoping to see the first butterfly, or 7-spot ladybird of the year. There is a lovely flowering heather struggling amongst the fence posts and I checked it. Two beautiful, fresh looking Bombus terrestris queens were lazily feeding on it, accompanied by a drone fly. Note the tawny end of their abdomens, which identifies them as queens. This large heather must be such a priced source of nectar and pollen at this time of year. I will be more fastidious this year recording the flowers on which I find each bumblebee species and write a blog with my results. Bumblebee watching is one of my favourite activities in the summer with my large lavender hedge and nectar-laden Hebe always humming with them. I have recorded all six common species, at least a cuckoo bumblebee and the new arrival Bombus hypnorum in my relatively small garden.

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queen number 1

queen number 2