Flying Ant Day

Monday 11th July saw millions of flying ants taking off on their mating flights right across Sussex. The black garden ant produces large, winged queens at this time of year, which incredibly synchronise their mating flights with thousands of other colonies all on the same afternoon.

The smaller winged males join the queens and mate with them in mid-air, then the queens return to earth, lose their wings and seek a new site to set up a new colony of ants. Most queens are not successful, but those that are may live 10-15 years laying eggs for the new colony.

How they do all the colonies know to come out at the sane time? There's a very lovely little video and explanation on the Sussex Wildlfe Trust website here