4 replies to this topic

[Xanuri]

I have been thinking about this for sometime, and finally I am getting around to creating a topic for discussion. Although I am nowhere near this stage in ant keeping, it is something I think at some point we have to prepare for!

 

So, the question really is. How and what do you do to prepare for this stage of a colony, and what are the things we need to prepare for, or perhaps this has really never been discussed and maybe we should discuss what is the "right way" to handle this event!

 

I am very interested in hearing what everyone has to say and what others are planning for, or perhaps some just haven't even considered it yet!?

 

All Ideas and thoughts are welcome or course!

[sirjordanncurtis]

Usually nuptial flights are not events that most ant-keepers experience. Many times, colonies don't get big enough for them to start producing a viable amount of alates for nuptial flights to happen. Usually, queen alates from colonies will end up assuming worker roles inside of the colony if they are not able to fly, or they will be culled in order to preserve resources. Males have no ability whatsoever to help out the colony, so over a period of time, they will most likely be evicted or killed. In order for nuptial flights to occur, many specific factors according to each species will also have to be present in the environment. Photoperiod, temperature, humidity, and the presence of hormones are just a few. Some of these will be easier to manipulate than others. However, many species of ants fly together and form large nuptial swarms, something which usually isn't possible with only one colony.

 

It's pretty much extremely unlikely that you would be able to have a nuptial flight at all. However, some species, like Pogonomyrmex badius (eastern US) form smaller mating flights which means that you could have "nuptials" if you put alates from different colonies together. There really isn't much preparing for these occurences as you pretty much just tube up the newly fertilized queens.

[Joehostile85]

I’ve never experienced a nuptial flight or any female alates in any of my colonies yet. But my one year old Myrmica Rubra colony produced about a dozen males last spring for some reason.

The males just walked around the test tube for a couple days. Then the workers just started dragging the males into the outworld. They walked around the outworld for a couple days then just died. After the queen produced those males she just went back to producing female workers for the rest of the spring/summer. I wonder if she will do the same thing this year.

Edited by Joehostile85, March 21 2019 - 4:38 AM.

[Canadian anter]

I have noticed that many of the semi-claustral species are a bit easier to induce nuptial flights. I've observed that a lot of heat and humidity will trigger Myrmica males to mate with everything, while cooler temperatures induce Ponera alates to climb onto stalks of grass and spread pheromones. retroman has a very good thread on breeding Pogonomyrmex tenuispinus I believe.

[TennesseeAnts]

Myrmica are extremely easy to breed.