Ants usually build their nest underground. Some ants build their nest beneath rocks or decaying wood. In the home, ants may decide to nest in Ants, like bees and termites, live in colonies with caste societies. Below the Earth’s surface is a land of tunnels and caverns where certain ant species live, eat, breed, and work.
There are three ant castes within a colony (sterile female workers, males, and queens (usually one queen per colony). Males, unfortunately, lead a very short life; their only real job is to mate with the queen. After mating, the male like the drone bee, shortly dies thereafter.
Queen ants are larger than the worker ants and can live for long periods of time, usually up to 5 years. However, one queen living in captivity and lovingly cared for by a Swiss Entomologist lived a full 29 years! Worker females live only about 5 weeks; they are the ants that forage for food to bring back to the colony.
Through their division of labor, ants are experts at controlling their environment. In cool habitats, ants will seek heat to raise their larvae by nesting under rocks where its warmer. Entire colonies can be found beneath rocks; in the spring when the ground is first warming up, one can turn over a rock and find near the surface, a nest complete with a queen.
Rocks have thermoregulatory properties, especially flat rocks that have a large portion of their surface exposed to the sun. By nesting underneath and using the solar energy from rocks, ant can keep their larvae warm. If the larvae is kept warm and at the right temperature, it will hatch sooner than some of the ants’rivals that are confined to bare soil.
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