Where do ants with wings come from?

Everyone knows the ant. We imagine him to be such a tiny laborer who conducts his life exclusively in earthly trouble. And what is our surprise when one day we find in the sky of large winged insects, which with a light cloud rise above the anthill. Who are these ants with wings? Today we will get to know them better.

Who the ant family consists of

The most common in the world are black ants. They can be found in the forest, in the garden and even in the city apartments. The structure of their families looks the same as other types of insect data. It includes the most important object of concern and anxiety of the ant community - the so-called "brood", adult individuals with sexual characteristics, and workers (females, unable to reproduce).

The number of individuals living in the same family can reach 20,000. Workers' ants are also divided into large families into castes: soldiers, nannies, builders, etc. A special place in the anthill is occupied by sexually mature males and females, also called ant queens. They are the same black ants with wings that swirl over us in the mating flight.

What happens after the flight

Soon after the mating takes place, the young female discards its wings (it either bites them off, or they break off on the previously planned line) and tries to create a new family. She has to rely only on herself, as her male soon dies, and these insects do not take help with themselves.

So, the female ant with the wings says goodbye and finds shelter somewhere under the stone. Here, from the eggs laid by her, a new anthill will take its start.

Black ants like dry sandy soil, but can choose for a nest and human habitation. Appeared first, the workers immediately begin to build a small hills-anthill over a nest with "brood."

How the "anthill" grows

Ants, barely hatching from a cocoon, feed the mother of the family, take care of eggs and larvae. They, already growing up, become food-earners, soldiers and builders in a couple of weeks. By the way, on how exactly the larva was fed, it depends who will later be born: ants with wings (future founders of families) or working individuals.

Interesting and such a "position" of an insect: a carrier of heat. Yes, yes, as it should be heated in the sun, this individual returns home! There she gives warmth, paying special attention to the premises with the offspring.

Than so annoy the black ants with wings and without them

In addition to the fact that black ants who have occupied your country house can hardly be considered pleasant neighbors, gardeners know very well that this is perhaps one of the most undesirable insects on the site.

They are breeding herds of aphids, of which "milk" sweet milk. In every way guarding their wet nurses and transferring them from already eaten shoots to fresh, young, ants contribute to the multiplication of parasites and the death of fruit trees, which they love particularly strongly.

But if you move large red ants-females from the forest (this should be ants with wings ready to be separated from the family), then they will push out the black brothers from the garden plot. And these insects are already useful in the garden, so let them live and reproduce.