3 replies to this topic

[Dotdispenser]

I live in East Tennessee. I was ant hunting around 8:00 - 9:30 P.M. and noticed a few things:

1) It was warm and windy
2) Moderately humid
3) THERE WERE MALE DRONES EVERYWHERE
4) Absolutely no queens

I have absolutely no idea what species the drones were from; however, I know that I saw no queens whatsoever in the hour-and-a-half that I was searching. Does anyone know why this is? Why I saw so many males flying and hovering around lights—yet no queens?

[dspdrew]

Usually the males fly before the females join them.

[Scrixx]

Just like Drew said, I've read that males fly first to find a suitable location then the females follow after. If there were that many males then chances are the females would've flown sometime after also. You may have missed them or some of those males may have been actually females. Some species have pretty large males.

[Dotdispenser]

So, what span of time do they fly before the queens? For example—minutes, hours, a day, etc.