1 reply to this topic

[Reevak]

So outside of my house yesterday I saw a massive amount of what I believe to be Lasius umbratus alates, and I had a few questions. 

 

1. Are these the alates of a single colony? I noticed quite a few workers here and there and I did not see any alates mating, so I was wondering if all of these alates could come from one single colony. I'm assuming they had all just come above ground from the colony below and that the workers were there to protect them. However, this seems like way too many queens to come from one colony (I think at least, I don't really know).

 

2. If these alates were all from one colony, about how many workers would this colony consist of?

 

3. There were several alates caught in a spider web on the ground (you can see it at some point in the video) but when I looked an hour later to see if there were any alates left, there were none. Not even the ones that had been stuck in the web. Is it possible that the alates got out of the web on their own or that the workers somehow got them out?

 

 

Here's the video. It was pretty exciting for me to witness this from my own driveway.

 

Edited by Reevak, September 13 2017 - 1:30 PM.

[Batspiderfish]

Looks to be a Lasius claviger mating flight. L. claviger and other social parasites gave up a larger gaster and independent nest founding, but in exchange, a colony is able to produce and sustain many more alates. The colony is probably massive and living entirely underground, tending to sap-drinkers under that tree.

Edited by Batspiderfish, September 13 2017 - 3:42 PM.