9 replies to this topic

[William. T]

Hey guys!

 

Recently, I have flipped over many rocks to look for colonies. However, I have only found workers with no queens or brood, iwht no access to burrowing soil. Where is the queen? I have also often seen colonies with brood, but no noticeable queen. While I am aware of satellite nests, these colonies seem too small to have one. Where is the queen?

[Ants4fun]

Often times workers go closer to the surface to warm up. When the sun is out, it makes it a lot warmer than there subterranean home.

[dspdrew]

Yeah a lot of the time when they are nesting under a rock, their actual nest is underground, but some of them just come up and hang out under the rock.

[antmaniac]

I find that they usually relocate the pupae to higher ground to keep them dry. The rest of the colony is probably under the ground and very difficult to find. The queen would be like the boss, you would really need to reach the very bottom in a mature colony to find her.

[Crystals]

If you are in a more northern cooler location, you can sometimes find the queen and colony warming up under a rock early in the day.  For my location, around 9-10am everyone comes up to warm up for a few weeks in spring. 

Other than those narrow times, you will usually only see workers or brood under stones, unless a flight happened a very short time ago and a queen had just taken cover under the rock.

[Jonathan21700]

I have seen that many times. When you pick the rock the ants start to run around and relocate the brood underground trough a tunnel. This way is much harder as others said the queen is really deep.

[AntLover101]

Over here on the eastern coast we have not seen any queens yet. The haven't had their nuptial flights yet. After looking at the weather, I think that Friday is when many nuptial flights will occur. I'm sure that Camponnotus pennsylvanicus will be having their nuptial flight on Friday.

[Ants4fun]

By the way the mating chart is for all areas. This means that while Camponotus may fly in april in more southern states, I would imagine camponotus flying in very late april and may. Also, it is pretty unlikely that "Many nuptial flights will occur" very soon as most ants fly later on, while a relatively few ants such as Camponotus, prenolepis imparis, etc fly in the spring.

[William. T]

I have often seen ants slightly larger than the others when flipping over rocks with brood. They do not look like majors, so I am wondering if I have skipped some queens.

[dspdrew]

This is what I have in my database so far for Camponotus pennsylvanicus
 

Species                     Year  Month Quarter State
Camponotus pennsylvanicus   2008  6     1    
Camponotus pennsylvanicus   2008  7        
Camponotus pennsylvanicus   2009  4     4       VA
Camponotus pennsylvanicus   2009  4     4   
Camponotus pennsylvanicus   2009  6     2       NJ
Camponotus pennsylvanicus   2009  6     3       IN
Camponotus pennsylvanicus   2009  6     3       MO
Camponotus pennsylvanicus   2009  9         
Camponotus pennsylvanicus   2010  4     2       MO
Camponotus pennsylvanicus   2010  5     1       MA
Camponotus pennsylvanicus   2010  5     1       MA
Camponotus pennsylvanicus   2010  5     3    
Camponotus pennsylvanicus   2010  5     4       NJ
Camponotus pennsylvanicus   2010  5             OH
Camponotus pennsylvanicus   2010  8     1       MA
Camponotus pennsylvanicus   2011  5     2       IN
Camponotus pennsylvanicus   2011  6     2       NJ
Camponotus pennsylvanicus   2012  5     3       MA
Camponotus pennsylvanicus   2012  9     1       ME
Camponotus pennsylvanicus   2013  4     3       NC
Camponotus pennsylvanicus   2014  6     3       OH
Camponotus pennsylvanicus   2014  6     3       KS
Camponotus pennsylvanicus   2014  6     4       NY
Camponotus pennsylvanicus   2014  6     4       NY
Camponotus pennsylvanicus   2014  6     4       NC
Camponotus pennsylvanicus   2014  7     4       VT