Ant Hill Wood

Alate ants are fertile males and females who will mate and become fertile. The males copulate with the females which can then store the males spermatazoa for the rest of her life without ever needing to mate again. The stored sperm will fertilise many thousands of eggs during the mated females (queen ants) lifetime, as these fully mated females become the mothers of a vast army of daughters, most of which will be worker ants; but some become specialized into other castes such as soldiers, more winged males and females or workers which will have a special task or role in life.

These incredible photos were taken by my wife. This is a Lasius niger alate female just before flying off to mate. Note the veins in her wings which help to maintain the rigidity of the wings and carry her weight as she flies high into the sky where she will mate with 1 or more male ants.

The biggest Lasius flavus mating flight my wife and I have seen since 7 years ago took place today (Wednesday 5th August, 2009). Literally thousands of winged males and females took to the air from 5:30pm until about 7:45pm this evening, and even as my wife took these photos, hundreds of newly mated queens descended from the sky and shed their wings.

Here are 4 photos of this flight, though sadly I can only show a very small amount of the vast hordes of alates that stretched along our path for 100 feet (30 metres) or more. The first shows virgin queens with workers excitedly massing around them.

 The next photo shows an eager male ant ready to mate, even before the female of his choice has had the chance to get airbourne and off the ground yet.

These 2 photos show a young queen ready to take off and fly away to mate.