You definitely have Nylanderia in your state. Try black lighting next June, and I bet you’ll find lots of queens.Do we have any Nylanderia in MA? If so, which species and where can I find them?
We do for sure, I've never seen any, but Otter in MA usually catches *tons* of them. I think he lurks in here as well.
Heyo yeah I lurk here mostly. Flavipes fly pretty much every day, rain or shine, from early-mid march to late may and can be found pretty much 24/7 although their main flight times are from 8 AM to 3PM. It heavily depends on the temperatures at the time. Best way to find them is find some little pocket of natural area in a city or fairly packed town that stays pretty moist and look around the edges. Stop, crouch, and stare at a small bit of pavement for probably ~1 minute and if you don't see anything go another few feet. You probably won't have to move if you find a good flight spot as they have extremely large localized flights. Two years ago I caught over 200 in about an hour on my front porch in Arlington. The average queen for me gets 15-20 nanitics with the best getting about 30. They are also polygynous although with 8-10 queens you should only expect to get 100 nanitics. You can combine colonies but it doesnt always work.
In a tree 50 feet up during the winter, at 5F, there's no cold protection there at all.
I was able to get them all back in place but it sure wasn’t the way I planned to start 
Everyone got fresh nectar and fresh water with chopped, boil-thawed, frozen cricket. I even noticed a new C novaeboracensis nanitic. We’ll see how their first month out goes. If things don’t work out, I may have some business for you noebl1.
