How to Catch a Queen Ant & Nuptial Flights

Each year, mature colonies send out winged males and winged young queens. Colonies of the same species across a whole area tend to fly on the same day. The queens mate, often in the air, and come back down within hours. The males die soon after.

Each mated queen then breaks off her wings and looks for a place to dig in and start a colony, usually on her own. That wingless new queen, walking on the ground, is the one to catch. A healthy one can raise a whole colony from nothing.

Flights happen from early spring to late fall, depending on the species and your region. Most follow the same kind of weather: a warm, humid, calm day, often just after rain. Some species fly in the morning, many in the late afternoon or evening, and some at night, when queens gather under porch lights and street lights.

A few common US flights, as a rough guide:

• Winter ants (Prenolepis): early spring, on the first warm days
• Carpenter ants (Camponotus): spring to early summer
• Pavement ants (Tetramorium): late spring and summer
• Cornfield ants and other Lasius: late-summer afternoons after rain
• Harvester ants (Pogonomyrmex) in the Southwest: after the summer monsoon rains

Timing shifts by weeks from south to north and from year to year. Local antkeeping groups usually post when flights start near you.

Look on open, hard ground: sidewalks, driveways, parking lots and curbs, along the base of walls, and under lights. Queens stand out on bare pavement, and they walk along edges looking for cracks to dig into.

A queen is much bigger than the workers of her species, with a bulky thorax (the middle section), where her wing muscles are.

Clues she has mated:

• Her wings are gone or coming off. Small stubs or scars on the sides of the thorax show where they were.
• She is on her own, walking quickly and with purpose, probing cracks and edges.

Wing loss is a strong clue, not proof. Most mated queens shed their wings soon after landing, but some keep them for a while, and now and then an unmated queen sheds hers. A winged queen may simply not have mated yet, so most keepers look for wingless ones. The surest sign is eggs in the weeks that follow.

Males are the small, slim, winged ones with tiny heads and big eyes. They don't start colonies.

• A few prepared test tubes, or a Scout set up with a Catch Cap (both below)
• A soft paintbrush, a leaf or a folded card for steering a queen
• A small box or bag to keep catches dark and out of the sun
• A pen or labels for the date, the place and your best guess at the species

Catching with a Scout? The Catch Kit has the Catch Cap for the catch and a test tube with cotton for the Scout's water. It costs less with a Scout.

This is how most keepers start a queen, and it suits almost any species. Make a few tubes before flight season so they're ready. Common 16, 18 and 20 mm tubes all work, and each size has a matching Test-Tube Adapter for moving the colony into a nest later.

• Fill a clean test tube about a third full of water. Bottled spring water or filtered water is best.
• Push a cotton ball in and down onto the water so it soaks through with no air gap. Pack it firmly enough that no water leaks out when you tip the tube.
• Wipe away any drops in the dry part of the tube. That dry space is the queen's room.
• To catch, set the open end in front of her and let her walk in, or steer her gently with a soft brush or a leaf. Many queens head straight into a dark tube.
• Close the open end with a second, dry cotton ball, pushed in just far enough to stay put. It lets air in and keeps her in.
• Label the tube with the date and place.

Keep one queen per tube, unless you know your species starts colonies in groups.

The Scout is a pocket nest made for this. You catch the queen straight into it, and she starts her colony there, in a dark queen chamber right beside her water, with room to grow to about 20 workers. No transfer needed.

Set it up before you head out:

• Fill a 16 mm test tube with water and plug it firmly with cotton, as in Method 1. The more water, the longer it lasts.
• Push the tube, open cotton end first, into the round opening at the end opposite the port until it seats. Eight ribs grip and seal it, and the damp cotton faces the queen chamber.
• Slide the lid in and fit the LockClip, so the lid can't slide open in a pocket or bag.
• Fit the Catch Cap in the port, and slip on the Cover to keep the inside dark.

To catch, hold the Scout low and set the Catch Cap's wide mouth right in her path. Its funnel narrows from about ⅝ in to about ¼ in, so it's easy to walk into. Steer her toward it with a soft brush or a leaf if she wanders.

Once she's inside, pull out the Catch Cap and push in the Port Plug that came with the Scout. Keep the Cover on, and set the Scout somewhere dark and quiet.

Keep her somewhere dark, quiet and at a steady room temperature, about 70–80 °F. A drawer or a closed box works well. Keep her out of direct sun and away from spots that swing between hot and cold.

Most common species start their colonies without food. The queen lives off her body reserves and raises her first workers alone, so don't feed her or open her tube. Frequent disturbance is a common reason founding queens eat their eggs.

A few species need small meals while founding. Myrmica queens, for example, forage for food. Look up your species if you're not sure.

Check on her no more than once every week or two, briefly and with a dim light. Eggs usually appear within a few days to two weeks. The first workers, small ones called nanitics, usually take one to two months at room temperature, sometimes longer.

Caught her in late summer or fall? Queens of many species from places with cold winters may not raise workers until after a winter rest. The heating guide explains how to give one.

Once workers are out, offer small meals every few days: a drop of sugar water or honey and a tiny piece of insect. Remove anything uneaten within a day.

If a test tube's cotton dries out, or mold spreads toward the queen, move her to a fresh tube. Pull out the dry cotton plug, set the open end of a fresh tube against the old one and tape them together. Cover the new tube to keep it dark and leave the old one in the light. She will usually move across with her brood on her own.

In a Scout, keep an eye on the water line. When it runs low, or the colony outgrows the Scout, Link it to a Founder. The moving guide shows how.

• Keep species that are native where you live, and never release a colony somewhere new.
• Moving live ants across state lines can require a USDA permit, and some states have their own rules. Check before you travel with a queen.
• Leave fire ants alone. Red imported fire ants sting, and moving them out of quarantine areas is restricted.
• Ask before collecting on private land, and don't collect in national parks or anywhere else it isn't allowed.
• Take only what you can raise. Two or three queens of one species is plenty, since not every queen succeeds.