Camponotus vagus flight in August???

Tourist · Beitrag von **Tourist** » 22. August 2019, 08:43

Hallo Kollegen,

I'm visiting Liguria for vacation and interested in ants. In the garden of the house I'm staying I found a beautiful colony of Camponotus vagus. Imagine my surprise when I saw at least 7 winged queens on the nest yesterday! But no males

Therefore, I have few questions:
1. Are those ants Camponotus vagus at all? See pics
2. Why there were queens and no males? Is their flight separated in time? Or should yhe fly from different nest even?
3. Is it an abnormality caused by an infection or parasite?
4. Could it be any kind of partenogenetic queens that wouldn't require males?

Best,
Tourist

DerTyp · Beitrag von **DerTyp** » 22. August 2019, 10:21

Hallo,
1.Yes, to me the queens look like Camponotus vagus. 2 Normally queens and males fly together, but sometimes there are Nuptialflights, where only queens or only males take part. However, in this case I think, that those are the queens of next year (Camponotus queens and males always are two years in the nest, before they fly off). 3 I never heard of a parasite, that could cause this, but there could of course exist one. 4 No, all queens need males to mate.

Tourist · Beitrag von **Tourist** » 22. August 2019, 10:49

Thanks for the response! I now see three queens sitting on the nest. Still, no males
Probably those are next year queens as you say.
I was hoping to get a Camponotus outside the regular flight time:)

Tourist · Beitrag von **Tourist** » 23. August 2019, 10:35

An update on this case
It doesn't look like those queens were to fly next year.
yesterday I found a wingless queen on the nest. She could have been the queen of the existing colony but I spotted her far from the main entrance. So if she was out for a walk it was a major one.
But today I found another wingless queen and one with wings on one side only, which strongly suggests that at least the " half-winged" one is a new generation and not the queen of this colony. See the picture. She is sitting next to the winged queen, which I released from an incubator.
So back to square zero...Camponotus Vagus do nuptial flight in the end of August?? I haven't seen any males and is it typical that they return to their nest (if they ever left it at all) ?

PS. Just looked at the nest: 7 out of 7 winged queens i found initially were on the nest. 4 without wings now and 3 atill with. So they likely never left the nest

DerTyp · Beitrag von **DerTyp** » 23. August 2019, 12:23

This is really strange. I did a bit of research, and found out, that someone else said, that his friend found a Camponotus vagus queen in early September. They lived in the Balcanregion. I think to theories are possible. 1. Camponotus vagus has in warmer regions a longer nuptial flight season that last until early September or 2. they have to separate seasons. One for April - juni and one from August-early September.

Tourist · Beitrag von **Tourist** » 23. August 2019, 13:07

The second nuptial flight season would make a lot of sense taking in account summer heat in July-August.
Doesn't explain the absence of males though and why those princesses didn't leave/ returned to the nest? I don't see them now btw.

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