191 replies to this topic

[iggy]

Here is another attempt to get the colors right under the microscope camera.  The background is brown cardboard.

 

[Ants_Dakota]

 

Here is another attempt to get the colors right under the microscope camera.  The background is brown cardboard.

 

 

 

Check out my Formica sp. Journal: https://www.formicul...urnal/?p=246305
There is post and ID thread I created on Formica montana, which could be your queen.

[iggy]

Update.  I pulled her out of the dark drawer and checked her test tube today.  She has one egg and is quite active.  She has removed her wings.  Back to the dark drawer.

[jo16]

So this morning I got up at around 7:30am, and the ant colony in my front yard was carrying tons of princesses out of their nest they where all flying away, I'm assuming that it's a neptule flight.

So I hope this isn't a stupid question but I was just wondering how you can tell if it's a queen if it still has wings, because I can't help but wonder if some of the queens might still have wings but I just think that they are princesses?

 

[ANTdrew]

Check spelling: nuptial flight.
Some queens will keep their wings, so they are not a surefire way of determining if queens are mated or not. The Tetramorium you saw flying in your yard shed wings very quickly after mating, though. Winged Tetramorium queens you find are likely to be unmated.

[jo16]

thanks.

[Izzy]

On August 23-24th 2025, northern Utah finally got some spotty monsoon storms which passed through the area and have triggered some flights of Solenopsis molesta, Lasius, and Monomorium. If you're in Northern Utah, now and this week would be the time to start looking for those queens.

 

Utah has had one of the driest years on record and that I can remember. Monsoon season typically starts in early July and we just now had our first storm in late August. Many areas of Utah are experiencing their driest year in the last 100-130 years. I still have yet to see any evidence of a large Pogonomyrmex flight, and I have only found one Pogonomyrmex queen. I've only heard of one other keeper on the Facebook group who found one as well. We're supposed to get some more monsoon rains this week, so hopefully they'll pull through and we'll see some more flights later.

 

While spring was wet with lots of clear signals of when to go ant hunting, this summer has been absolutely abysmal with little or nothing to show. Its made me question what will the signal for flights be if we don't actually have any rain in some areas. Will the ants not fly at all, as they wait for a signal that never comes, or at some point do they just decide to fly? So to answer my own question, last week I took a journey out to the Colorado Plateau region near Price and Huntington on a day after a storm went through the area. This storm didn't really drop any major rain, but humidity was at 50% and I hoped that would be the signal given how dry it has been. I was surprised at how few Pogonomyrmex workers I saw foraging despite temperatures of 80 degrees. As I started flipping rocks I found mostly dead and desiccated ant colonies. While that area has had some storms go through, they haven't really dropped any serious rain. Not sure what the long term consequences of having no rain for such a long time will be for this region, but I can't imagine it's good. Hopefully the ants have found more moisture farther down in the ground, and hopefully we'll have some more rains later in the coming month which will trigger the flights of that region at a later time than normal.

 

I'm going to continue to monitor the situation and report what I observe for this strange year.

[Izzy]

Apparently the Utah weather heard my last post. Last night we had some huge rain storms come through Utah county that caused some flooding in a few houses and even a mudslide in the Buckley Draw, where a wildfire ravaged the mountainside about two weeks ago. Lasius neoniger and brevicornis, Solenopsis molesta, Dorymyrmex insanus, and Monomorium minimum had some flights this evening in Provo Canyon. Pogonomyrmex occidentalis flew out by Eagle Mountain yesterday. Some areas received three months worth of rain in a single storm, but the areas in the Colorado Plateau region still desperately need rain. If you're in Utah county or anywhere that received heavy rain last night, I suggest looking in the mountains, canyons, and foothills in the coming days for the above mentioned species as well as Aphaenogaster.

Edited by Izzy, August 28 2025 - 9:02 PM.

[ANTdrew]

Northern Virginia desperately needs rain, too, or fall flights won’t be happening this year.

[jo16]

This year I cot around twenty Tetramorium Immigrans queens, so I need to sell some.

I will sell max 14 queens if I can, most already have workers.

I am selling them for 15$ each, and I will only sell them If they are for sure fertile.

If your interested PM me.

Also I am only selling to people in Utah. 

[RushmoreAnts]

Northern Virginia desperately needs rain, too, or fall flights won’t be happening this year.

Interesting. Around SD and the rest of the great plains/upper Midwest it's been the rainiest season this decade. During many of the weeks it rained more than it didn't. I was having trouble predicting flights since pretty much every day was the day after a rainstorm. 

[Izzy]

Northern Virginia desperately needs rain, too, or fall flights won’t be happening this year.

 

Dang, that's crazy. Hopefully you all get some out there! Kind of a sad. Definitely puts a bit of a damper on the year.

 

Interesting. Around SD and the rest of the great plains/upper Midwest it's been the rainiest season this decade. During many of the weeks it rained more than it didn't. I was having trouble predicting flights since pretty much every day was the day after a rainstorm. 

 

We've had a bit of this as well once the rain finally came. It kept raining over and over in the spots where you'd find Pogonomyrmex and it never really heated up above 80 degrees for several days, so the big flights never happened until this weekend when I was out of town. Bummer! Just funny to see the monsoon storms hitting the exact same spots over and over while some areas still have had nothing.