Happy mother’s day to my Camponotus pennsylvanicus queen! She is nearly four years old this summer and the proud mother of nearly 700 beautiful daughters. Here she is today and years ago where her colony had only 30 ants. She has done an amazing job raising a huge colony!
When the colony was smaller their queen would carefully monitor each new ant as she emerged as you can see in this video. A single worker making it, or not, can determine if a small colony survives.
Now there are so many (~670 ants) that she can't possibly keep up! Their nest fills two football-sized logs on my bookshelf. Many of the brood are raised in the second nest: those ants never even get to meet the queen.
These ants can have colonies of up to 10,000 or 20,000!
That's not just possible but pretty typical. The army ant queens will have up to a million daughters before they go on to the great bivouac in the sky.
The way young ants hid under their mother when the colony was small just ... it's the most wonderful mother's day image ever I think.
There is something about watching an ant eclose that's so dramatic, they are seeing and feeling as an adult ant for the first time-- they have a whole new body and the world is full of new sensations. It must be terrifying!
Most insects go through this stage alone... but ants always have someone to help to receive them into their new world: their colony.
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