by The strongly sunken “Flying Ant Day”, a summer phenomenon in Great Britain and Ireland, is ready to return, since warmer weather remains throughout the UK.
Swarms of winged black garden ants, typically Lasius Niger, break out of their nests under lawns, flower beds and stone coatings to penetrate into personal space, to cling to laundry and to dine against car wind discs.
Their mere numbers can be so immense that they have previously registered as drift clouds for weather radars. Simon Partridge, Prognostics of Met Office, said the BBC that it could be difficult to distinguish them from screeching spots.
The event can be uncomfortable and occasionally very irritating – how the tennis stars Caroline Wozniacki and Ekaterina Makarova had to interrupt in July 2018 to spray themselves with the rejection of insects in order to achieve an influx of flying ants, but it is a largely harmless, humanless and not worried.
Nevertheless, it means being warned, so here is everything you need to know about these strangest annual events.
Why does it happen?
The reason why ants suddenly appear in this way is that you have reached the “wedding” phase of your reproductive cycles.
While the queens run, they emit pheromones to attract colleagues while flying as soon as possible to ensure that only the fastest and capable men can reach them.
This is an example of a natural selection in action, since the breed ensures that only the strongest examples of the species can pass on their genes to a next generation.
The spread to fresh colonies that are further serves to limit the inbreeding because they multiply ants with friends from other nests.
A queen who, according to the Natural History Museum (NHM), can live in the wild for up to 15 years for up to 15 years, can have several friends during the wedding flight and keep her seed in her stomach for a lifetime to fertilize future eggs.
She will throw away her wings by wandering them up and forming new nests underground, but their male freely will simply fall to the ground and, without a post -coital cigarette, die their last moments on earth.
Which weather conditions promote it?
In Great Britain and Ireland, flying ant days usually occur in July or August, often in warmer urban areas when the weather is hot and moist and when the winds are low.
The temperature is a key factor because the Royal Society of Biology (RSB) finds that ants are rare when it is cooler than 13 ° C and 25 ° C are their preferred seasonal average.
Incidentally, the RSB argues that we should think of flying ants instead of isolated days, since ants can occur several times over the course of a British summer on several occasions, depending on the atmospheric conditions, the type of shares and type of living space, among other variables.
What can be done about it?
Unfortunately not much. Some may be advised to flood or try the ant nests with water or cleaning agents to deal with them in Sellotape in the house, but that feels much inhumane.
Instead, it is best to stay out of the way as far as possible and to comfort yourself with the integral role that Ants play when maintaining natural ecosystems.
Their colonies help to keep the floor ventilated, and they themselves are an important source of food for birds such as Swift and seagulls, which in turn make important contributions to the natural order.
If they are bitten or stung, they are not alerted.
The NHS states that ants are “generally harmless, although they will probably feel a nip”.
