Undoubtedly, ants are the most common sight you can witness at any time and place. They never disappoint us humans, show up with their presence, and would be seen even when they are the last creatures you want to see.
Like every living being is categorized into a male and female category, so are ants. Male ants are known to be drones, whereas female ants are referred to as queen ants. Just like all the characteristics assigned to a female, they also apply to this female ant.
Queen ants can reproduce through mating with a male ant and are the mother of all the produced ants. She is the queen because this female is the originator of the ant colony, is responsible for looking after all her offspring, and can produce more.
Now when wondering what other features this queen ant exhibits, one of the most typical questions that come into mind is, do queen ants bite? To address this and many other queries relating to the queen ant, keep reading our investigation of the ant community.
Table of Contents
Do queen ants bite?
Supposedly, you were surrounded by an uncountable number of ants, and right after you detached yourself from the situation, you started itching around your entire body. The odds are likely that you got bitten by an ant.
But which category of the ant bit you? Do queen ants bite?
The reply to this is no; queen ants don’t bite. So you either got bit by a male ant or any other tiny organism that surrounded you, but you were unaware of it.
Primary purpose of a queen ant is not to bite but to fertilize, lay, and feed eggs. Queen ants are somewhat more immobile and inactive than drones, making them relatively incapable of biting another person.
As they are not strong enough to look out for their selves, they tend to rely on other ants of their community to provide them with safety against any potential risk.
Therefore, the only activity a queen ant engages in is the sphere of reproduction. Like the purposes fulfilled by a woman, a queen ant is also responsible for multiplying and replenishing her colony, spending most of her lifetime doing this.
Only instance where you could expect the answer to do queen ants bite will be a yes if the ant thinks you are a threat to her colony. Subsequently, the defense mechanism of the queen ant will be activated, compelling her to retaliate against you through a sting or a bite.
What queen ants look like?
Variations and diversifications are bound to exist anywhere and everywhere. Be it anything or any life form you come across, it is assured that you will encounter them in a variation.
In fact, what makes everything distinct is that they distinguish from each other through their physical appearances or innate capabilities. When looking for what queen ants look like, the straight-up answer to this is that they do not look anything like a male ants.
When you see a queen ant, it is with relative ease that you can discern between them and the rest of the ant community. This is because queen ants possess outstanding features.
A queen ant is ordinarily recognizable through her size. The ant is more significant than any male or other worker ants. She has four long and robust wings, which aid the queen ant in transportation to find potential male ants to mate with.
Once the queen ant has mated and succeeded in her endeavors of conceiving an egg, later, when the egg is laid, her four attached wings will automatically be detached from her body or removed by her accompanying worker ants.
Removal of these wings leaves inscribed scars on the body of a queen ant which you can identify when inspecting the ant closely. Trunk of the female ant is more comprehensive and comparable to her head, with the abdomen being huge, as the queen ant’s main goal is to reproduce.
So if you are looking to eradicate the source of the problem of constantly being bothered by ants in your house, another way to locate the queen ant is to see which of the ant is getting the most attention.
Queen ants are constantly receiving attention from male ants in the colony. In your search, if you witness innumerable tiny ants all gathered upon a giant ant, that is your queen ant!
It will surely be the queen ant because she always surrounds herself in the presence of other ants or usually resides within the centers of the nest and only goes around when looking for the colony to relocate.
Do queen ants have wings?
Have you ever watched an ant fly? Well, if you have, then it is with certainty that they have wings; however, the core subject of our focus in this investigation is the queen ants, so let’s discover if they have wings.
In most populations and species of ants, they are born with wings. Although they both possess this feature, it is only the male ants that widely make frequent use of their wings. Keep in mind that male and female ants can fly only, except in the community of the army of ants, whereby only males got wings.
Wings are needed for multiple reasons. Firstly, the ant community requires wings to flee any threatening situation. Secondly, queen ants require wings to fly around, looking for other potential male ants to mate.
If it were not for the wings of the queen ants, they would have never flown nor coupled, resulting in the collapse of the ant community. However, because of these wings, female ants successfully find themselves mating matches.
When many queen ants fly around, they all gather for a ritual known as the mating fest. On this occasion, all the collected male and female ants mate after finding a match. The fest may prolong depending on how many ants take part in it.
If you have seen an enormous crowd assembled in the air, know that it is the ongoing mating fest of the ant community. Once the queen has mated, her wings will no longer serve any fruitful motive to her.
It’s time for the wings to be shredded. As the queen ant controls her own body, she chews all four wings off, starting from the left. The entire process is notably quick, and she will be done detaching her body from the wings in almost a minute.
Without these wings, since the queen ant cannot fly around anymore, she digs a nest for her safety. Here in this nest, the ant will reside for the rest of her remaining life, rearing her offspring and surviving on her muscles for energy.
What do queen ants eat?
By this point, we have investigated queen ants enough to know about their lifestyle. They do not bite and only fly around for mating while spending their following life in an underground nest. So how do they survive? What do queen ants eat?
We know that they do not leave their nests and look after baby ants; they only leave the nest when the queen ants are looking to relocate.
Therefore, queen ants habitually obtain proteins from their muscles to ensure survival. This means that they eat their decaying muscles to live. But since this form of consumption and diet does not prove sufficient for growth, they look for alternatives.
Worker ants are responsible for bringing queen ants other food sources through hunting or, at times. The queen ants undertake this authority by leaving the nest once in a blue moon to search for food.
Although the diet of a queen ant varies depending on what her worker ants get her, some components remain constant, such as consuming tiny insects, leaves, seeds, and nectar.
As eating adequate amounts of food is integral while laying eggs, the worker ants ensure they get their queen ant as much food as possible. During this period, they will look for extra food to feed her on their hunting trips.
Where do queen ants lay eggs?
After being triumphant in the journey of flying around and looking for male ants to mate with, the next step in our investigation is to inquire- where do queen ants lay eggs?
The process of laying eggs by the queen ants occurs in a nest. The location of building a nest differs according to the species of the ants. Some choose to lay their eggs at height and on top of trees, whereas others select secretive places where they would be undisturbed by the rest and go for a nest under the soil.
Picking the right place to build a nest is a crucial step in the lifetime of a queen ant. This is because it is the exact spot where she will be staying, not only after laying her eggs but also to look after them until they have grown to a size where they can disperse without supervision.
Queen ant stays in their procured nest, brooding their eggs while they develop into larvae. The colony of ants keeps expanding as the eggs laid by the queen ants mature. All eggs will not mature simultaneously but acquire a different span.
However, when fully grown, the adult ants fulfill the duty of worker ants for the queen ant and are committed to bridging her food while she resides there, further nurturing the community even more.
Living span of a queen ant
Determining the span of a queen ant, the results are pretty astonishing. It is rather unbelievable that the queen ant lives for twenty years, constantly mating, reproducing new batches, and then raising them into colonies. However, you must remember that the living span of a queen ant differs from species to species.
As the colony of ants thrives and queen ants tend to brood new ants, the larvae previously under the mother’s care will mature into reproductive ants. This means that now that these female ants are reproductive queen ants, they will be going around, using their wings, seeking new and more mating partners.
Following mating, these female ants must find a nest and lay their eggs. This process is like a continuous cycle and will keep repeating itself.
Ridding of queen ant
Even though you can assume that if you identify the queen ant and kill it, the whole problem of your space being invaded by ants will be solved. It does not work like this. Yes, killing the queen ant might significantly impact the brooding and growth of the ant colony, but it would not stop the process at all and at once.
After a queen ant dies, leaving behind her batch of recently laid eggs, it becomes the job of the worker ants to take the process over from there and look after the brood till it has become fully functional.
Though what is likely to happen after the death of the queen ant is that the colony will start to diminish in size and eventually vanish. However, the situation could be reversed if a new queen ant comes to conquer the entire community taking it under her surveillance.
As we previously specified, for the group of ants to flourish, they must be headed by a queen ant. It is not only an identification of a female ant but a relatively integral role that this ant plays in the caste organization of the ant colony.
Hence, a recommendation for getting rid of ants is first spotting and freeing the queen ant.
Conclusion
In this investigation on queen ants, we have answered all the basic questions that one would have related to the subject. Now you must know how the queen ants live, what they eat, how they mate, and whether they fly. Also, as an added advantage, we have given you the key to solving your issue of constantly being riddled by ants around your living space!