Mar 7, 2012 – Removing Their Clutter
QUESTION:
How long do wings stay on carpenter ants?
ANSWER:
We know that both termites and carpenter ants do shed their wings at some point in time, and there are a couple of reasons for this. In fact, it appears that the loss of their wings is consistent for all species of ants once they have mated. Queen ants and termites resign themselves to a life indoors after they have mated, and once they are sequestered within the chambers in wood or the soil those long wings would just be in the way. So, according to E. O. Wilson in his extraordinary book "The Ants", "as soon as the queens are inseminated they shed their membranous wings by raking their middle and hind legs forward and snapping the wings free at the basal dehiscent sutures".
View past Ask Mr. Pest Control questions.
How long do wings stay on carpenter ants?
ANSWER:
We know that both termites and carpenter ants do shed their wings at some point in time, and there are a couple of reasons for this. In fact, it appears that the loss of their wings is consistent for all species of ants once they have mated. Queen ants and termites resign themselves to a life indoors after they have mated, and once they are sequestered within the chambers in wood or the soil those long wings would just be in the way. So, according to E. O. Wilson in his extraordinary book "The Ants", "as soon as the queens are inseminated they shed their membranous wings by raking their middle and hind legs forward and snapping the wings free at the basal dehiscent sutures".
He goes on to add that (and again I quote from his book), "Over the coming weeks the alary muscles and fat bodies are metabolized and converted into eggs, as well as food to rear the first batch of larvae". So, there is the primary reason the wings are lost - they are no longer needed for the "Queen" and the large muscles that operated the wings now are used as food reserves for the development of eggs and to feed the first brood of larvae. It appears that this "dealation" occurs almost immediately after the new Queen is inseminated by the male, as this causes the production of pheromones that trigger the instinct to remove the wings and for the muscles to convert to other needs.
While winged reproductives, those males and females still loitering in the colony, are still inside the colony the Queen of that colony produces chemicals that prevent these new reproductives from mating or beginning to lay eggs, and this is why they may hang around in the colony for a whole year with their wings intact. Once they finally swarm and mate they now are free of the influence of the colony's Queen, and their chemical changes take place. Apparently this occurs in the termites as well, so when porch lights draw thousands of swarming termites to a structure some evening the porch may be littered with thousands of wings the next morning. It seems that an orgy took place on the porch that night.
View past Ask Mr. Pest Control questions.
