4 replies to this topic

[JXZ]

Hello everyone, have some questions about some recent residents to my household....

A week or so ago I noticed a few ants around my home, which indeed was a bit unusal for the middle of the winter in the foothills of the Colorado Rockies. Sort near Denver basically. Loveland. Anyways I thought nothing of it. But They seemed not to go away. And increasing in a numbers, not too many however. A few days ago we started having alot of snowfall about that time I saw the first winged one. Then we started seeing many ones. Odd amount of diversity tho, small ones, larger ones, different colored ones and winged ones, all seemingly together. I settle on the fact now that they likely moved in doors.

Awhile ago I went into my kitchen for coffe to see around 10 out and about about my coffee maker, worrkers and winged ones. Lifted the maker up, about 20 underneath. Eventually I pulled out an empty drawer in my spice rack (right next to the coffee maker) to find a motherload (havent looked for more but I think there may be) of them all huddled up in a carpet, mostly motionless. They barely reacted to me removing the drawer from the rack. All sorts, mostly wingless workers but a fair amount of wing ones too. I've dumped them in a jar for now....

On brief and inspection (and the defensive small they make) it would appear they are a carpender ant type, although I don't think I've seen this type around my area much. They are darker and there's more varation in sizes.

So what's up? Did they have to move in the dead of winter for some reason? Seriously there is 3 feet of snow outside. Or is it a split in a colony(that happens right?) Is it just workers that have gone off with new queens to start a new colonies? If so why in the winter? Are the winged ones drones or new queens or both? I didn't even think they hatched until springtime. Is it possible I found a mature queen?(I can finally realize my childhood dream and catching a queen and keeping a sustained colony, and carpenter ants were always my favorite as a child =P). Why is there such a varity in the workers?

I will upload pictures shortly.

[drtrmiller]

Tldr

[Ants4fun]

Carpenter ants (Camponotus sp) are polymorphic which means they have variations within the workers to separate different castes.

[dspdrew]

They don't start new colonies that way. The winged ones could be males or females. We would need to see a picture to know. Most likely you didn't find a mature queen, just a bunch of infertile alates.

[Mdrogun]

Hello everyone, have some questions about some recent residents to my household....

A week or so ago I noticed a few ants around my home, which indeed was a bit unusal for the middle of the winter in the foothills of the Colorado Rockies. Sort near Denver basically. Loveland. Anyways I thought nothing of it. But They seemed not to go away. And increasing in a numbers, not too many however. A few days ago we started having alot of snowfall about that time I saw the first winged one. Then we started seeing many ones. Odd amount of diversity tho, small ones, larger ones, different colored ones and winged ones, all seemingly together. I settle on the fact now that they likely moved in doors.

Awhile ago I went into my kitchen for coffe to see around 10 out and about about my coffee maker, worrkers and winged ones. Lifted the maker up, about 20 underneath. Eventually I pulled out an empty drawer in my spice rack (right next to the coffee maker) to find a motherload (havent looked for more but I think there may be) of them all huddled up in a carpet, mostly motionless. They barely reacted to me removing the drawer from the rack. All sorts, mostly wingless workers but a fair amount of wing ones too. I've dumped them in a jar for now....

On brief and inspection (and the defensive small they make) it would appear they are a carpender ant type, although I don't think I've seen this type around my area much. They are darker and there's more varation in sizes.

So what's up? Did they have to move in the dead of winter for some reason? Seriously there is 3 feet of snow outside. Or is it a split in a colony(that happens right?) Is it just workers that have gone off with new queens to start a new colonies? If so why in the winter? Are the winged ones drones or new queens or both? I didn't even think they hatched until springtime. Is it possible I found a mature queen?(I can finally realize my childhood dream and catching a queen and keeping a sustained colony, and carpenter ants were always my favorite as a child =P). Why is there such a varity in the workers?

I will upload pictures shortly

Did the ants look alot like the ones in this video?

Edited by Mdrogun, February 3 2016 - 7:03 PM.