This year, I’ve been collecting data on the number of queens I collect in a spreadsheet to see if there were patterns. The first thing to stand out was the distribution of queens across each month. I was collecting far more queens in August and September than in other months because of how many Brachymyrmex depilis queens were flying.
Of the total queens collected this year (333), roughly two-thirds (221) were Brachymyrmex depilis, as shown above. The second most common was Nylanderia faisonensis, with just 20 queens collected, with the third most common, Solenopsis molesta, at 19.
Across different species, they tended to fly 0-3 days after rain, with many being on the same day as the rain.
However, the number of days was fairly inconsistent for many species, like Tapinoma sessile ranging from 0-21 days, for an average of 7 days. One outlier was the surprisingly consistent genus Lasius, with an average across three species of 0 to 0.5 days.
Of all queens from this year, 83% (276) were collected when the temperature was between 75 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit (F). This indicates that they like warmer weather, but this year’s summer was pretty mild, with only a few days even going over 90 degrees. These queens were collected mostly on walks in my local area, Budd Lake New Jersey. Typically I would go for ant walks 4-6 days a week.
Next year, I want to track the number of queens that lay eggs as well as how many of those successfully get nanitics.