Wood ants (Formica rufibarbis)
Formica rufibarbis · Formica
Wood ants (Formica rufibarbis). Recorded flying from June through August. Reddish-orange head, reddish-orange mesosoma, dark brown-black gaster. Reddish head and thorax against a dark gaster, smaller-bodied than the rufa-group queens. Recorded near 3 of the 190 locations Dealate tracks.
When do wood ants fly?
Recorded flying from June through August.
Flight calendar
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Queen appearance
Reddish-orange head, reddish-orange mesosoma, dark brown-black gaster. Reddish head and thorax against a dark gaster, smaller-bodied than the rufa-group queens.
quick, solitary forager gait typical of the fusca/rufibarbis group, frequent pausing
Founding care
Fully claustral: seal her in a test tube setup, somewhere dark and undisturbed. She raises the first brood on her own wing muscles and needs no food or opening until the first workers appear.
Needs a winter diapause: a cool, dark rest period each year.
Diet: Insects, meat, sugar water, honey etc.
Intermediate · Queen ~9-10 mm
Read more on AntWiki →Care data from antkeeping.info (CC BY 4.0).
Habitat
Soil · also thatched mound · typical for this genus
After a flight, watch bare or grassy ground for wingless queens. Scan open ground near woodland for wandering queens and thatch mounds.
Recorded near
London, Brent, Islington, Reading, Southend-on-Sea, Brighton, Milton Keynes, City of Westminster, Northampton, Bexley, Luton, Barking, Archway, Sutton, Croydon, Ilford, Slough, Oxford, Enfield Town, Harrow, Cambridge, Basildon, High Wycombe, Colchester, Tottenham, Watford, Crawley, Worthing, Chelmsford, Walthamstow, Dagenham, Basingstoke, Maidstone, Bedford, Woking, Eastbourne, Gillingham, BecontreeSan AntonioSan Jose, San Francisco, Oakland, Fremont, Hayward, Sunnyvale, Concord, Santa Clara, Vallejo, Berkeley, Antioch, Richmond, Daly City, San Mateo, ChinatownMore Formica species
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