I need your help!

Hey folks.  Spring is here in southern cal and I am working on a project and a hobby of mine.  I’ve always been fascinated with the micro world around us; in particular, the social behaviors of ants.  I want to share that with my kids and their schools by providing a couple of ant farms for my their schools as well as at home.  When you were a kid, you may have had an Uncle Milton variety of these.  They come with a coupon for a tube of worker ants in the mail.  Very basic, usually the ants die shortly and/or escape.

This project is a bit different.  I want to give the schools the ability to observe the animal lifecycle in action.  Therefore, I need queen ants.  And I need your help to collect them. 

How You Can Help Me

Queens make mating flights in the Spring, you will notice this by seeing a huge swarm of ants in an area.  This might be near a nest, it might not.  You might see numerous ants spread out over your backyard, balcony, window sill or in the parking lot at work.

When you do, please drop me a note or a call with the area.  If it is close and I am free, I will try to come by and make a collection.  If you are inspired you could collect some for me. 

What To Look For

Queens look different from worker ants.  First of all they are much larger and their bodies are shaped very differently.  An ant has three parts to its body; head, thorax, abdomen.  The thorax is in the middle and on a queen, it is very large.  Here is a a perfect example:

Notice the queen has a larger middle section than her workers AND she is larger AND she has wings.

Wings are the other telltale sign of a mating flight because they do after all fly! 

Shortly after the flight, however, a mated queen will rub off her wings so keep an eye out for her, she is the ultimate prize for my project.

Color, Size, Species

I am not interested in the small argentine ant that is all to common in Los Angeles. 

Though interesting to study, these successful buggers are everywhere and are in fact wiping out other species in the area.  Plus, they don’t fly.  They are small and brownish, so if you see that, you can pretty much ignore.  And by small I mean?  Ants are all small relatively, but Argentines are about a 2-3mm in size and Queens bigger.

Anything that is multicolor or bicolor (red and black) is AWESOME!  Call me, ASAP. 

Anything large (10mm+) is AWESOME, Call me, ASAP. 

Anything red and large is AWESOME!  Call me, ASAP.

Time of Day

It could be anytime really, but midday through evening is a good time.  Warmth and moisture are important.  It just rained yesterday so this week is a good time given that flights usually follow rain.  Be on the lookout!  In the early mornings, you might notice a solitary queen out foraging for food.  DON’T STEP ON HER!!! 

Regions

Unfortunately, we have to stick the local Socal region.  So, my friends out of the area can’t help me.  It is completely ILLEGAL to transport live queens across state borders in the United States.  This is largely due to an overly aggressive law created in reaction to the invasive fire ant species but that is another story.

Collecting

If you are inspired to help or want to do something like this for your kids or hobby, it’s not hard.  Bring along individual containers of some sort to collect the queens.

Something small is preferred like a small box or Petri dish with a top; a test tube is perfect.  You can use a Q-tip or soft paint brush to brush the queen into the container.  I am nearly positive that a queen would not sting you, but this is actually a gap in my learning and with some species, it would so not be fun to be bitten or stung so don’t just pick them up. 

After you have collected her, you’ll want to keep her in the container in a dark, quiet place where she will be undisturbed until I stop by or you decide to keep her.  The container should have a bit of moist cotton, not wet, but she will dry out and die without some moisture.  A test tube stoppered like this is perfect:

Wrap-up

So, really, that is a long-winded way of saying “please call me if you see a mating flight or ant swarm.”  I appreciate your help and so will the children.

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