9 replies to this topic

[Ameise]

Hi there!

 

I knew beforehand that it is illegal to bring a queen ant from one state to another. However, I only found out today that in some states, it is illegal to bring queen ants across county lines.

 

I, however, have no knowledge of this particular law in my state - Illinois. It's a fairly large state, and we basically have three biomes in it (North, West, and Southern Illinois), though most ant species are in all of them.

 

Is anyone here familiar with the law regarding this in Illinois?

[ultraex2]

As far as I know the USDA Aphis law is federal and not per-state which makes it illegal to take queen ants across state lines - it is a blanket law that applies the same to every state in the same way.  How did you find out that it's only illegal in certain states?  Because I'm pretty sure that it is illegal in every state.

 

As far as transporting them across different "biomes" that's perfectly fine and isn't an issue.

Edited by ultraex2, June 12 2017 - 6:41 AM.

[Ameise]

As said (I appear to be running into you here and on Reddit ), I found out that it's illegal to bring them across county lines in some states.

[ultraex2]

Ohh, county - my bad, I thought you meant country... whoops!

 

That part I am not too sure of, sorry!

 

EDIT:

 

This may help - I went camping down in Argyle lake state park and told them I was coming down from Rockford and asked for permission to collect ants.  (Obviously I would take them back).  They gave me the okay so if there was specifically something illegal about county lines I'm sure they would have said something.

Edited by ultraex2, June 12 2017 - 6:51 AM.

[Ameise]

Possibly; they could just be unfamiliar with the laws. I suspect that it only takes one Ranger who's having a bad day to make your day very bad.

 

If you want to look somewhere interesting, I was anting/exploring around the Shawnee National Forest (as you can probably derive from my Reddit posts), though it's obviously a bit of a drive. The insects there are a bit different. Lots of termites, and lots of small red ants that aren't Camponotus but were inhabiting rotting wood. Very few Camponotus, surprisingly.

[ultraex2]

Yeah, he may or may not know but as long as you get permission it should be okay.  It would be nice to get a concrete answer but that anecdotal experience is all I have as far as that goes.

 

Dang, 5.5 hours from where I'm at - that is quite the drive.  Someday I need to try and get down there, it sounds like a cool place.  I'm gonna take a guess and say that the red ants are probably aphaenogaster if they aren't camponotus - a lot of them like to live in logs/dead trees/stumps/etc.  I know I've seen them go into holes in them, but I don't know if they carve them out themselves or not.  

[Ameise]

5 hour drive for me too from the Chicago Suburbs. We were in Kentucky for a wedding, decided to stop at the park where it's legal for me to take things (the Kentucky side, obviously, would not have been).

The workers were relatively small - about double the size of the pavement ants we get up here in Northern Illinois. One of the colonies I busted had alates, and I saw the colony's queens twice - they were about double the volume of the workers (not the length). But basically, out of all the stumps/logs... I think I found about 12 red ant nests, 10 termite nests, and the single carpenter queen.

 

ED: Also, do you know when the next P. imparis flights are? I used to find their queens all the time, but this year... I've seen almost no queens of any species at all.

Edited by Ameise, June 12 2017 - 7:29 AM.

[ultraex2]

Probably not until next year - I still see the occasional worker foraging but for the most part I think they are starting their summer hibernation.  I caught a dozen queens back in April - I think on the 9th or maybe 2nd.  It seems like 8 of them are "good" and should be getting workers in a week or 2.

 

I have found one (good so far) C. Pennsylvanicus last week and last month I found 8 Stenemma queens.  Other than that I haven't really found much camponotus or anything - hopefully tetramorium should be flying soon, hoping to get a bunch of them when they fly.

[Ameise]

This year I've found the two C. pennsylvanicus queens and whatever other Camponotus species that other queen is. I have no knowledge yet if they're good - no laying yet.

 

That's about it.

[ultraex2]

Ah, dang - that stinks.  I do feel like there are a lot more formica/lasius/tetramorium around here though so we should be getting a lot more nuptial flights over the next couple months.  I'm kind of lucky in that my backyard has a small woodlands in it so there is a decent diversity there, plus there's a pool where I've fished out a lot of queens from so far.

 

If you don't have one, you should try looking into making a black light trap - they seem to work pretty well and it's pretty easy to check every morning.