Page 64 - The Miracle in the Ant

In the picture, a wood ant nest is shown. The height of these nests built by wood ants from
pine needles and twigs may reach approximately 2 metres.

Different Reproduction Methods of Wood Ants

The males and queens of wood ants are winged. However, they do
not fly by a nuptial flight as other small ant species do. Mating is real-
ized on the surface of the nest or some place nearby. After mating, the
queen picks off its wings and does one of the following three things:
(1) She returns to the nest where she has previously lived as a larva
and leaves her eggs there.
(2) Sometimes she leaves the nest with workers carrying her and
looks for a new place to build a nest.
(3) If she leaves on her own, she enters the nest of smaller related
species, like the black ant Formica Fusca, and replaces the queen there.
The queen leaves her eggs to be looked after by the Fusca workers in
there. For a while there are both guest workers and host workers in the
nest. However, since the hosts do not have a queen, after a while the
workers die and the wood queens acquire an established nest without
doing anything. 33

Kar›nca Mucizesi
64 THE MIRACLE IN THE ANT