Blog, page 3
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.
5 August 2026
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 →4 August 2026
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 →3 August 2026
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 →31 July 2026
You caught a queen this week. Now what?
She's in a takeaway tub on your counter and the internet has a thousand opinions. What matters in the first few days, and why the hard part is waiting.Read →29 July 2026
How high do flying ants actually go?
A drone with a sticky trap finally measured it, flown through a live swarm. The numbers are lower than expected, and the surprise is who flies highest.Read →27 July 2026
Why your neighbour's ants flew and yours didn't
Two gardens, same street, same weather, only one swarms. What separates them is mostly soil temperature and colony age, and both vary over metres.Read →25 July 2026
Flying Ant Day 2026: what actually happened
Britain's 2026 predictions ran 7 July to 2 August. The ants started on 21 June and hit Met Office radar by the 8th. A season that refused to be a day.Read →24 July 2026
Ants are mating a day earlier every decade
A century of museum specimens shows North American ants flying to mate earlier as the climate warms. What Helms (2022) found, and why it matters.Read →22 July 2026
How to find a queen ant after a flight
Once a swarm is over, the mated queens are on the ground, not in the air. Where they land, how to tell a queen from a worker, and why few survive.Read →20 July 2026