Wood ant antics

Photo taken by my friend and photographer, Zakary Chapman - all rights reserved.

We recently visited some dry heathland bordered by mixed woodland in the hope of seeing heather, deer, osprey or other exciting animals. It was a hot day in the school summer holidays so the odds were stacked against us! However, we did manage to spot a buzzard, an oyster catcher, and what looked like a green shank.

On our way back to the car park, we stumbled upon a small mound of twigs, pine needles and soil, heaped up over a decaying log. Upon closer inspection, it turned out that this was in fact a wood ants nest, which l marveled at. The many ants were busy scurrying around, carrying objects to their nest and generally doing ant-y things. I found them fascinating, and decided to find out more about them. As a beekeeper, I quickly found out that wood ants have many similarities to honey bees.

The wood ant is an aggressive, pretty big ant who is equipped with massive jaws and the ability to spray formic acid to defend itself. I suppose they could be called natures tanks...

They're home is built out of soil, twigs, leaves, and pine needles, often built in open sunny spots and can be in both coniferous and broadleaved woodland. They eat a wide variety of invertebrates which the workers gather from the surrounding area, and even harvest honeydew from aphids. The colony size can vary massively and sometimes can have about half a million ants - that's some army - this includes workers (the name says it all), the queen (the egg layer and who the workers serve), and males (who will mate the queen.)

After a long hibernation over winter, there is a rather long to-do list to get through. So in spring, they move to the top of their nest to warm up on the sunny days. This forms a dark ant blanket which heats their nest up, as well as them! Once this has been ticked off their to-do list, they start repairing the nest after winter damage, like snow/frost damage. You can see them at work, collecting necessary materials to patch up their nest. They will also be hunting protein rich foods, such as caterpillars, beetles and spiders, just to name a few.