On a sunny evening in late June, I found an elusive Tetramorium immigrans queen. They are apparently excellent beginner ants, hence why I wanted to find them. They turned out to be much more difficult to find than I previously anticipated. Last year I caught three of these queens at a friend’s pool, but those didn’t lay a single egg. This year, however, I caught a total of nine, but one died the day after capture. I have no idea why one of them died, but the other eight all have nice brood heaps! The queen in the pictures is special because 1; she is the only one found conventionally (on the side of a road in this case), and 2; she is the first pavement ant queen I found this year. The others were all found underneath firewood logs. Those logs are being moved today, so the queens I found there were rather lucky. Hilariously enough, the first time I found queens under logs, it was completely accidental! All queens found under logs laid eggs. Two of the three I unintentionally discovered had eggs in their mandibles. Thankfully, no brood was ever lost. A few days later, all eight pavement ants that are still alive had created impressive brood piles.
