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Notes on ant nuptial flights: when they happen, what sets them off, and where the popular version of the story parts company with the research.

Why we won't tell you when tropical ants fly

Why Dealate withholds generic flight-month estimates near the equator, and what local rainfall records can tell us instead.Read →

Parasitic Lasius: queens that hijack a colony

A big gingery queen on paving in late August is probably not L. niger. She can't found alone; telling her apart from her host matters before you tube her.Read →

Why cities fly first, and by how little

Cities run warmer, so urban flying ants go up earlier. The UK survey puts the gap at about three days: real, but smaller than most people expect.Read →

Lasius flavus: August flying ants in British lawns

Britain gets a second flying ant season in August, from the yellow meadow ant. It goes up at dusk, from grass rather than paving, and most people miss it.Read →

Harvester ants fly on the rain, not the date

Pogonomyrmex flights key off the North American monsoon. The trigger is rain, not a date, and where the rain doesn't come, neither does the usual timing.Read →

How to tell a queen ant from a big worker

A queen isn't always the biggest ant you'll spot. Thorax shape, wing scars and what to photograph, so size alone doesn't fool you.Read →

Why one colony can fly twice in a summer

A missed flight isn't always a missed species. The same nest can send up a second batch of queens weeks after the first, in a good year.Read →

Fully claustral or not: how a queen founds

Whether you feed a founding queen depends on which of three strategies her species uses. Fully claustral queens seal themselves in and live on stored reserves.Read →

Why the forecast and your garden disagree

A forecast describes a box of air miles across. A nuptial flight happens against one warm wall, and the shower that stops it can be narrower than that.Read →

The second wave: British species still to fly

July belongs to the black garden ant, but the season isn't over: red ants, parasitic yellow Lasius, a thief ant, and one that waits for October.Read →

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