South Coast, bit of a swarm of flying ants at around 7pm, mating all over
the place, first ones I've seen this year. Stayed around for about an hour
and then disappeared, gone somewhere far away I hope.

Same problem in London, apparently:

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/835511-f...-plague-london

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/...g-ants-twitter

On Mon, 19 Jul 2010 21:39:23 +0100, Mentalguy2k8 wrote:

South Coast, bit of a swarm of flying ants at around 7pm, mating all
over the place, first ones I've seen this year.

Not here, ah probably because we don't have any ants... B-)

Stayed around for about an hour and then disappeared, gone somewhere far
away I hope.

I think the males will have died after finding queen. The queens
after mating will have flown to the ground, shed their wings and
crawled away to start a new nest. I doubt they travel all that far.

Same problem in London, apparently:

Have they worked out how ants synchronise this mating flight across
so many nest and huge areas?

--
Cheers
Dave.

In article 6K21o.437205$_m6.262711@hurricane,
says...

South Coast, bit of a swarm of flying ants at around 7pm, mating all over
the place, first ones I've seen this year. Stayed around for about an hour
and then disappeared, gone somewhere far away I hope.

Same problem in London, apparently:

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/835511-f...-plague-london

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/...g-ants-twitter

Not here;-) I have a big colony of ants living in a dalek plastic
compost bin; obviously it's too dry but amazingly, they do a terrific
job of converting the contents to a fine brown humus. The bonus is a big
harvest of ants eggs on the top surface, which I take to feed my
goldfish.
The other day I opened the lid to fetch some ant eggs
and there were about 2 million flying ants inside, ready
for take-off.Rammed it back on quick. They don't have another exit and
today they're all dead.

Janet.

Mentalguy2k8 wrote:
South Coast, bit of a swarm of flying ants at around 7pm, mating all over
the place, first ones I've seen this year. Stayed around for about an hour
and then disappeared, gone somewhere far away I hope.

Same problem in London, apparently:


All my fault. We picked up a paving slab on the allotment yesterday and
there were approx 85 trillion of them came out. Sorry. Should have dropped
it back in place sooner!

"Mentalguy2k8" wrote in message
news:6K21o.437205$_m6.262711@hurricane...
South Coast, bit of a swarm of flying ants at around 7pm, mating all over
the place, first ones I've seen this year. Stayed around for about an hour
and then disappeared, gone somewhere far away I hope.

Same problem in London, apparently:

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/835511-f...-plague-london

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/...g-ants-twitter


I recall this happening about this time of year when I was a kid about fifty
years ago in eastern Canada. I used to call it "Ant Day". All the large
fat females would drop to earth, shed their wings and go off and found new
colonies. As you say, thankfully they disappear shortly afterwards.

someone

someone wrote:
I used to call it "Ant Day".

Yep, I remember 'Ant Day', too. But only from the 80s.

--

wrote:
wrote:
I used to call it "Ant Day".

Yep, I remember 'Ant Day', too. But only from the 80s.

Last time it happened here the swallows swooped, not many left me thinks!

On 20/07/2010 09:04, Broadback wrote:
wrote:
wrote:
I used to call it "Ant Day".

Yep, I remember 'Ant Day', too. But only from the 80s.

Last time it happened here the swallows swooped, not many left me thinks!

Yes, there was a mass gathering of swallows round here last night, and
I'd unearthed a load of flying ants while getting the oxalis out of the
cracks in the front path - suspect there must have been more on the wing
than just mine judging by the number of birds involved.

Jill Bell wrote:
Yep, I remember 'Ant Day', too. But only from the 80s.

Last time it happened here the swallows swooped, not many left me thinks!

Yes, there was a mass gathering of swallows round here last night, and
I'd unearthed a load of flying ants while getting the oxalis out of the
cracks in the front path - suspect there must have been more on the wing
than just mine judging by the number of birds involved.

We seem to have been getting an awful lot of swallows in the evenings for
the past couple of months. No significant increase since the ants took off.
But then, I'm not sure there is enough air space to allow more!