Ants with wings?

But ants don’t have wings, do they?

If not, then what are all these dead bugs on my windowsill?

Those are ants on your windowsill and they do have wings, here’s why.

I have white-footed house ants living in the wall of my home. They very rarely come inside and they’re not going to damage the structure of the house, so I leave them alone and use them as a good opportunity to observe their habits. This help’s me to understand their seasonal behavior and changing diet.

This week I noticed the following.

This is a group of white-footed house ant with wings. They’re gathered in a cluster just above the hole they use to get into the wall of the house.

They were there for about 90 mins and then they disappeared

So what were they doing?

This is typical ant behavior at time of the year. The colony is in the process of forming a new nest. The ants are all winged males as well as a single winged queen.

The queen will fly away to start a new colony. Once she’s found a good location the males will swarm around the entrance to the nest and fertilise the Queen. Once fertilised she’ll build the nest and start to lay her eggs. The poor old males will die.

This can lead to a significant build-up of dead ants lying around the windowsill/car/deck/roof. 

Sound familiar

These are the dead males and yes they do have wings.

If you have a well established ant colony in your home this is something you’ll notice on an annual basis. If you need to eradicate the nests in your home to get rid off these annoying pests please get the Bug King team in to do a professional treatment.

We hope this helps and as always, more information about ants is available on our website. Feel free to give the team a call for advice or to help diagnose the problem and recommend appropriate treatments.