Nuptial Flights in Georgia, USA for July?
Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2018 7:56 am
Can anyone in the Southeast list some of the ants that have their nuptial flights in July? I am in Atlanta, GA and looking to find some queens. Thanks!
A reply, for what it's worth, from a complete novice.
Today is July15, 2018. Here in Marietta GA, I've just caught an extremely minute queen ant... crawling on the wall in my bathroom where a window was left open. I put a previously prepared test tube with water reservoir behind cotton ball over her... she crawled straight to the cotton and drank.
Yes, I have prepared tubes in my car and in my kitchen and in my bathroom! Why? Because having failed to find any queens on my outdoor searches, in May I found a queen Camponotus pennsylvanicus crawling across my kitchen floor. She has produced so far half a dozen workers plus assorted eggs, larvae, and pupae/cocoons. So I've prepared for the eventuality of similar random encounters.
I had to use a magnifying glass to be certain she was an ant! She still has her wings, and I hope that she has already mated. It rained yesterday, Sunday, and I found her at 6:00 AM today, Monday. Reddish color, plump gaster, with alternating bands of yellowish brown and darker reddish brown. I imagine this stripe effect to be a matter of the lighter underlying tissue being exposed by her distended gaster pushing aside the darker outer cuticle (terminology?).
So... I know she's a queen and expect she's been part of a mating flight in the last day or so. But I don't know what kind she is, or how to tell you to look for others of her kind, or if she is fertile. I literally caught her about half an hour ago and will try to research what she may be. I'll post here if I find anything useful.