For the owners of a house or apartment, it becomes a real nuisance if a colony of ants begins to develop within the walls of their home. One or more individuals may be seen at first. But over time, the number of uninvited guests increases significantly. If you destroy insects that are found here and there on the road of the owners, it will not give results.
The reason for the rapid spread of pests in the house is the ant's uterus. It is on this person that the successful distribution of the species around the apartment depends. To get rid of a colony of ants in your home, you need to know what their uterus looks like, as well as know several features of its behavior.
Features of the uterus ant
The queen ant occupies the highest place in the hierarchy of these insects.
Different types of duties and relationships of the queen with the entire clan are somewhat different. But among domestic (pharaoh) ants, she enjoys special privileges.
The uterus does not protect its place of dislocation, it does not take part in the processes of food storage. She also does not build a dwelling, does not collect garbage. Its purpose is to ensure the continuous replenishment of the population of its colony.
All other representatives of this large family fully respect the interests of the uterus. They create all the conditions so that she could freely replenish the colony with new individuals. This principle of behavior has become fundamental to the survival of this species and explains its distribution throughout the planet.
Domestic ant queen
Ants have a clear hierarchy in their society, at the head of which is the uterus. It is she, first of all, who is responsible for the survival and expansion of her colony. The queen of ants does not build a dwelling, does not store food, does not protect the habitat from uninvited guests. However, all other ants mainly observe its interests, ensuring the prosperity of the anthill and its regular replenishment with new inhabitants.
REFERENCE! A similar relationship between the uterus and all other inhabitants is characteristic only of domestic red ants (or, as they are also called, pharaohs).
This is probably one of the reasons why these insects were able to spread so quickly and stronger than the rest of the planet.
How she looks like?
It is not difficult to distinguish the queen ant from all other insects. Usually, it is much larger than other individuals.
In addition, it has a rather large round belly of a darker color with thin light stripes. Its size is 3-4 mm, and it is for laying eggs.
The queen looks more massive and less mobile than worker ants. Another significant difference from other individuals is a wider and more developed thoracic region (in simple ants, the chest is no larger than the head).
This structure is a consequence of the original presence of wings.
Young females that have not yet gone through fertilization and do not own their own colony have wings. When founding an anthill, they are discarded, or the females gnaw them off on their own.
Lifestyle
Once a year, ants develop a large number of females and males, which have the ability to reproduce. Mating occurs during the summer season.After fertilization, the female no longer returns to the home anthill, but tries to find a place to found her own colony. There she can lay her first eggs, from which to breed worker ants. Males in any anthill are always present in small numbers, but the attitude towards them from other insects is not too respectful.
At this moment, the future uterus loses its wings - it can simply shed them, or gnaw them off to get additional nutrients.
It is worth noting that females of red ants sometimes do not leave the anthill, but live with the rest of the queens, which is why their number can reach 200 within one colony. At the same time, infertile uterus can be destroyed - there are always those who want to take its place, but superfertile uterus can even be borrowed to neighboring colonies.
Over time, the anthill grows so much that small groups of insects will separate from it, forming a kind of "branches", but at the same time maintaining contact with the parent colony. It is very difficult to destroy such a settlement, since it is necessary to find all such formations, and kill the queen in each of them.
REFERENCE! The average life span of a red ant queen is 10-15 years old. She can lay eggs all her life, which in all years will amount to more than 500 thousand pieces.
Composition of individuals in the colony, the uterus itself regulates. To do this, she pollinates the laid eggs with special pheromones, as a result of which worker ants appear from them. It is they who are involved in the distribution of eggs, help young individuals to hatch, and are engaged in the extraction of food.
When the anthill grows seriously, the uterus ceases to have enough pheromones, as a result of which individuals capable of multiplying and establishing new colonies begin to appear from them again.
How to find a nest of ants in an apartment?
Ginger ants, which usually scurry around the apartment in search of food, are simple workers. They can be destroyed, but this will not give any significant effect - the queen will quickly replenish her family. Therefore, it is most important to find and destroy the nest itself, while killing the uterus.
However, in reality it is not that simple. Ants tend to organize it in a warm, humid place - in the bathroom or in the kitchen. In addition, it should be dark and difficult for others to access. These may well be cavities under the tiles, channels for electrical wiring, sockets for sockets.
It may also happen that the anthill will be located not in an apartment, but somewhere in the ceilings between floors. As a result, the nest will either be impossible to find at all, or you will have to acquire a full set of plumbing and assembly equipment.
Nevertheless, it is still worth spending energy on the search. It is necessary to carefully observe the movements of the ants around the apartment, notice the directions in which they leave with the prey. Holes in the walls can be treated with polyurethane foam or silicone sealant - this will cut off the ants from their usual feeding places.
IMPORTANT! If a nest of a red ant was found in an apartment and all the queens were destroyed in it, the colony is usually removed from its place and leaves its dwelling, which has become dangerous.
But in cases where this still cannot be done, you can take a defensive position, placing poisoned food and trying, thereby, to directly poison the queens.
Domestic red ants are a big disaster in the apartment. Thanks to the queens, they multiply very quickly, and when separated from the main nest, they can form "branches". In any case, each colony is headed by a queen ant. It differs from other individuals in its larger size, large dark abdomen, and developed thoracic region. Young unfertilized females have wings, which they shed or gnaw off after the foundation of their nest.Finding a nest at home is a big problem, because it can be located in any warm protected place - in ceilings, under tiles, cable ducts. However, its detection and destruction of all queens is guaranteed to force the ants to leave the dangerous place of residence.
Appearance
What a queen ant looks like should be considered in detail.
It is very easy to recognize her. It is much larger in size than other ants that make up this colony.
The uterus has a large, round abdomen. It has a darker color. Thin light stripes are visible on the abdomen. The abdomen is about 3-4 mm long. It is intended for laying eggs.
The large size of the queen makes her clumsy. It is less mobile than other ants. Also, this individual has a rather developed thoracic region. It is wider than that of worker ants. This is due to the presence of small wings that the young female possesses before her own colony emerges. The queen sheds her wings when a new clan is founded.
Breeding features
Studying the question of what the uterus ant looks like, it is necessary to consider the features of their reproduction. In almost all species, a large number of heterosexual individuals emerge from pupae once a year. These males and females are capable of breeding.
Mating takes place during the flight. If the female has been fertilized, she no longer returns to her anthill. Such individuals scatter around in search of a suitable place to lay their first eggs. Further, workers emerge from them.
It is after the flight that the uterus gnaws off its wings, which allows it to receive additional nutrients for the continuation of its kind. This is how colonies of many species of ants are born.
number
According to scientists, ants are the most numerous insects on the planet. For clarity, an example can be given: according to statistics, there are about one million individuals per person.
If you weigh all the currently existing people in the world and ants, you get approximately the same value.
Colony of domestic ants
The queen ant has a more privileged position in the colony of domestic representatives of the species. However, with the appearance of a large number of them, the attitude of worker ants towards them becomes somewhat dismissive. The uterus lives up to 15 years. During her life, she is able to lay more than 500 thousand eggs.
Her environment is somewhat different from other clans. The largest colony ever recorded by scientists consisted of 340,000 worker ants. But in ordinary nests, there are up to 15 thousand individuals.
It should be noted that in almost all colonies the worker ants are female.
But among domestic individuals, males are also found in small numbers. But the rest of the community treats them badly.
In the colony of pharaoh ants, which can be found within the walls of the house, only 10-15% of the workers are engaged in the search and extraction of food. All other members of the large family are in their den and are engaged in servicing the uterus. Some individuals are engaged in caring for offspring. So the visible part of this anthill is negligible in comparison with its real size.
Feeding the ants and feeding the uterus
In red insects, the emerging individuals immediately begin to look for food for themselves and the uterus.
Only 15% of worker ants leave the anthill to forage for food. The rest serve the uterus and care for the offspring.
Workers deliver food to different families. The reigning person is fed with the food brought or fed with their own belching. Since insects are omnivorous, the queen ant has no restrictions in her diet. In the conditions of a human home, food waste is most often consumed.But insects often get access to containers with cereals, they also enjoy meat products. Most of all they are attracted by sweet foods: sugar, honey, jam, fruits.
During the period of feeding the offspring, the uterus is fully provided with food containing a lot of protein, which the young growth needs.
Difficulty identifying the uterus
The question of how to find the queen ant in domestic representatives of the species is rather complicated. The fact is that the reproduction process in these insects is different from others. The female becomes capable of producing offspring when she reaches a certain size. After mating occurs, the queen does not leave her colony. She stays right here.
In a colony of domestic ants, due to this feature, there may be several hundred fertile queens. They coexist peacefully within the same colony, without showing aggression towards each other.
When ants get cramped in their nest, they simply find a place next to the main colony. They keep in touch with her. The queens can move from one nest to another. This is already a super anthill. It is very difficult to destroy it. To do this, you must find all the nests and their queens.
The danger
Not all insects are dangerous, but among them there are species that can not only cause significant damage to human health, but also kill. A striking example is stray ants.
Huge, with well-developed jaws, blind, they constantly roam, sweeping away everything in their path. Their main habitat is Equatorial Africa.
When intelligence reports that wandering ants will soon pass through some settlement, people quickly leave their homes. If someone forgets a pet, then upon arrival it will be found lifeless.
The only plus - in the course of their march, stray ants destroy such unpleasant creatures as rats, mice, cockroaches, bedbugs and others.
Another deadly species are bullet ants. Only 30 bites per 1 kg of a person's weight - and death is inevitable.
Division into classes
Even knowing what it looks like and how to get the ant queen bee, you can not cope with the destruction of the ant colony in your house on your own. Therefore, it is better to entrust such work to professionals.
In other types, the division into classes is quite simple. The uterus, laying eggs, marks them with special pheromones. These substances inhibit the sexual development of the offspring. This is how workers appear.
When the colony becomes very large, the uterus will not have time to mark all the eggs. So individuals ready for fertilization begin to appear. This is a natural process of population regulation in other colonies.
In domestic ants, the queen can be compared to a dairy cow on a farm. The worker ants take care of her, but if she stops laying enough eggs, the queen can be killed. This is how natural selection takes place.
The role of the queen in the nest
The queen ant has two main roles. Early in their lives, they are programmed to begin creating a new colony. After leaving the ancestral nest and mating, creates a new nest and lays the original group of eggs.
Once the larvae are mature enough to take care of her, she turns her attention to the next stage of life: becoming an egg-laying machine - millions of eggs in a lifetime. Selectively uses the spermatozoa left over from the mating flight, laying fertilized or infertile eggs, depending on the needs of the anthill.
The sex of each individual is determined by whether the egg is fertilized. Fertile eggs become worker ants, and unfertilized eggs develop as males. If fertilized eggs and pupae are well grown, they become queens.
The sex determination system, haplodiploidy, is valid for all Hymenoptera - ants, bees, wasps. However, some ant species do not reproduce sexually, and all members of these colonies are females.
How to find a nest?
The question of how to catch a queen ant is complicated by the presence of a large number of fertile individuals. Therefore, wanting to get rid of the colony, it is necessary to look for all the nests.
Ants form their colonies in humid and warm places. Their favorite rooms in this regard are the kitchen and the bathroom. It is also, most likely, a dark corner inaccessible to others. Most often they are found in channels for electrical wires, in voids under tiles, socket outlets, etc.
Sometimes the anthill is not in the apartment, but in the nearby area. For example, it can be interfloor floors. The search can take a lot of time and effort. But you still have to pay attention to this issue. It is best to notice the direction in which the worker ants move away with the food pieces. If you do not take any action, the colony can grow so much that its functioning will be equated with a natural disaster.
Note
Unlike ants in the wild, which perform many positive functions, house ants are pests. No one is immune from their appearance in a residential building. They can penetrate through any crevices, sewer and ventilation pipes. The colony, together with the uterus, can seek refuge after fighting it in a neighboring apartment.
The queen is sometimes housed in the basement, and large groups of workers enter the apartments. The only way to destroy the population is to get to the queens. Sometimes this requires the simultaneous chemical sanitation of all apartments in the house. But even then the recurrence of their new appearance remains high. The best way to get rid of pests is long-term control of them using special poisonous agents. The ant queen is not able to live in constant danger and will be forced to leave its nest.
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How to deal with ants in the house?
The queen ant is the central person in the nest. She is fed with pieces of food brought from outside. Worker ants can also regurgitate food, giving their food to their queen.
The ants that appear in the apartment will sooner or later move towards their colony with the food they get. It is important to keep a close eye on where they are going. If they go through holes in the wall, cover these holes with silicone sealant.
If you are lucky enough to find the whole nest directly and destroy the queens in it, the rest of the ants leave the dangerous place for other feeding areas. If it was not possible to find a colony, food with poison should be placed for the worker ants, who will deliver them to their queens. This is how the invasion can be dealt with.
Having found out what the uterus of the form looks like, as well as the peculiarities of its behavior, you can cope with uninvited guests in your apartment. Action must be taken quickly or the magnitude of the disaster will be enormous.
How an ant's uterus lays eggs. The composition and life expectancy of the ant family
Ants are collective creatures. They live together in large families - colonies. The composition of different settlements may vary slightly. The inhabitants of an ordinary anthill are divided into several castes:
- A queen ant is a female that lays eggs. She is called the queen, because it was she who founded the colony, raised the first worker ants and continues to maintain life in the settlement. In most species, the queens settle in the depths of the nest and hide at the first danger. Queens live from 10 to 20 years. The maximum lifespan of such an individual was 28 years.
- Males are males that are needed in an anthill to fertilize females, after which they die. If they could not find a pair in 2-3 weeks, the inhabitants of the colony kill them or drive them out of the nest.
- Worker ants are the main part of the inhabitants of the settlement. Their role is to provide the queen and the whole family with food and protection, support and equip the anthill, and raise offspring.
These insects live 3-5 years. Life expectancy depends on what kind of work they do in the nest. Individuals caring for the queen live less, caring for the house and offspring - longer.
External factors influence the life span of insects. In natural conditions, these are natural enemies, in formicaria - bright light, sounds, wrong temperature and humidity. An ant settlement is a single organism, each individual in which performs its function. Without the division of insects into classes and roles, the colony could not exist.
