Identification help

[LadyManga]

Caught these two beauties while taking my cat to the vet, only had one test tube to hand so more are coming on Fri.
Firstly, are they even Queens, and secondly, which species are they? I assume they're queens coz they're huge (8mm) with big butts and no wings, but I'm not sure if this is a species with majors and supermajors so, playaz halp.
Ant 1


Ant 2


Thank you,
LadyManga

[Okumura]

queen Lasius sp, maybe niger but im not sure

[LadyManga]

queen Lasius sp, maybe niger but im not sure

Oh, thank you, they're my first ever catch so I'm really looking forward to watching the development of these ladies, and hopefully I can catch a few more before the nuptial flights are over.

[BrunoB]

They are most definitely queens!
Congratulations on your first catch

To me they look like lasius niger queens, although a bit light in color compared to the ones I'm keeping. Maybe it is the photo or they might be from a different specie from the lasius family, I'm not great with ant ID but there are amazing people here who will give better info for sure

They are great good luck!

[LadyManga]

They are most definitely queens!
Congratulations on your first catch

To me they look like lasius niger queens, although a bit light in color compared to the ones I'm keeping. Maybe it is the photo or they might be from a different specie from the lasius family, I'm not great with ant ID but there are amazing people here who will give better info for sure

They are great good luck!

I did wonder about how brown queen 2 is. I caught the two in different locations to try and increase the likelihood of catching a fertilised queen. I took the pics of queen 2 outdoors though so it might just be the lighting difference. I should have the new test tubes today but I might have missed the window of the nuptial flights so I'm not sure if I'll catch any more. It did rain last night though so I'll go do a walk around the block to see if any are flying today.

[Hawkeye]

Caught these two beauties while taking my cat to the vet, only had one test tube to hand so more are coming on Fri.
Firstly, are they even Queens, and secondly, which species are they? I assume they're queens coz they're huge (8mm) with big butts and no wings.

Yeah they are queens indeed, and I would agree they look like Lasius niger though it might actually be another species. Check out http://antwiki.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_of_Great_Britain_and_Northern_Ireland and compare them to other Lasius ants that live in the UK. That should help you get started.

Here's some images I took from my captured Lasius queens. Maybe they will help?