Black Garden Queen Lasius niger

As with all ants (and their relatives, bees), the queen Black Garden Ant, also called Common Black Ant, is far larger than the worker females and the males. She is twice their length at 8-9mm long and much larger overall. Like the workers, she is very dark brown with segments like lines on her abdomen; she can look glossy black.

Some queen Black Garden Ants seem to have light coloured legs. They can be confused with queens of yellow garden ants since although the workers are yellow the queens are brown.

Males are produced by queens just before mating flights. They have wings and a dark glossy body differently-shaped from the workers. The size difference between the male and the massive new queen is most obvious when they are mating. Ants usually mate on the wing, generally during hot summer months of July and August in Europe.

Flights can contain thousands of winged males and females. After a queen mates, she removes her wings and digs a nest tunnel to lay eggs. The new queen digests her wing muscles as food for winter and lives for some 15 years.

The Red-sided Sector Spider can carry a queen ant over twice her size. An opportunist male continues to mate with one queen while the spider carries the two up a wall. Male ants generally die 1-2 days after the mating flights.