Don't ants ever sleep? I see them in my kitchen and they seem to work non-stop!!!?
341115
I suppose they do but probably not at regular times like every 11pm or something. They probably take turns sleeping.\n\nThis site says some ants sleep 7 hours a day:\nhttp://www.ivyhall.district96.k12.il.us/4th/kkhp/1insects/ant.html
442542
It happens to the best of us. I think it is because they are so inactive during sleep, they need time to "wake up" just like we do!
1017648
FIRST OF ALL I'M SORRY BUT I'M PISSING MY PANTS YOU ARE A TRIP!! IF THE TRAIL MIX WAS IN YOUR ROOM AND IT HAD ANTS IN IT I WOULD THROW AWAY ALL YOUR FOOD IN YOUR ROOM AND VACUUM YOUR ROOM REALLY GOOD SO THE ANTS DON'T CRAWL ON YOU WHEN YOUR SLEEPING THIS COULD BE A PROBLEM!!  IF YOUR NOT SICK NOW THEN I THINK YOU'LL BE FINE!! BUT RED ANTS WILL BITE YOU IF YOUR NOT CAREFUL CHECK YOUR SELF FOR (SMALL) RED MARKS IF YOU HAVE THEM THEN YOU WERE BITTEN BY THEM PUT CALAMINE LOTION ON AND YOU'LL BE OK!! IF YOUR NOT BETTER THEN CALL YOUR DOCTOR HE CAN PROBLEM HELP!!!......THE ANTS GO MARCHING ONE BY ONE....LOL
1135671
No they do not follow the same path. They follow a pheromone trail path set by a forager ant. The ensuing ants will reinforce that path until the food finishes. Yes they know where they are going, as they will also follow the strongest and shortest pheromone trail path.\n\nAlso, through the observation of the sudden infestation of my house with literally hundreds of ants (probably its winter). They find sugar traces in my toilet sink (I was doing some soda and mentos experiment there) :P, and a box of opened cereal at the top of my fridge.\n\nDestroying a path of ants seem to work poorly, as they still continue... they seem to operate much more actively in the day and communicate with other ants with increasing frequency when they are in the trail. Ant poison (chemical but toxic food for ants, which they will feed the queens with) seems to work a few years back and my current batch of ants seem to be taking the bait...
846939
Yes. When I was 2, we lived in Florida and I made the mistake of standing on a hill of fire ants. 40 years later, when I'm in bed with my arm under the pillow and it starts to fall asleep and tingle, I go crazy thinking the ants are crawling on me.
1061531
Ants have varying food sources AND they go through various lifecycles where they eat different things at different times of life.\n\nYes, they do usually go back to their nest and leave a chemical scent trail so the others can get back to where they found the food source.\n\nIt's possible that wood in the floor by the toilet or urine that hasn't been cleaned up, yet is attracting it.
1021879
I tried to ask one person who was bitten by carpenter ant and that ant had gone inside his both ears,,,when I told him " would you mind telling me if the ants damaged your ear drum"  he began to signal with his hand......I didn't know why!!!!!!!\nYou could ask him
507418
Ants are always out exploring, and two things happen here:\n\n1. One ant will come across the sugar and will make a trail from there to the colony, soon hordes of ants will follow the trail to bring home the bacon.\n\n2. As long as there is moisture, a nearby and will actually smell the sugar from a few yards away. It does have a smell too. Once he stumbles across it, the same will happen as described earlier.
402684
1.1 Where can I get queen ants? \n\nThere are a few possibilities:\n\na. You can dig her nest up and find her. This is a tedious and\n   difficult method and may not always be successful. The queen\n   is very difficult to get. --Ant\n\n   I have done this numerous times. For Formicas (larger small\n   mound building species) I use:\n\n   1. Spade shovel\n   2. 2 five gallon buckets\n   3. 2 covers for buckets\n   4. Metal spoon.\n   5. Newspaper (a section will do)\n   6. Jars/bucket with 1-2" inside near rim treated with oil\n\n   The process I use is to locate less developed nests (smaller).\n   Then I carry shovel, buckets, and covers to site of nest\n   during mid to late day (when sun has warmed upper soil).\n\n   Next, I cut a circle around colony usually about size of\n   bucket or smaller if possible. Think of this like cutting a 6"\n   deep hole of sod; but don't pull up the section until you have\n   made your circular cut. When your ready lift the whole\n   section out of ground -- intact if possible -- put in first\n   bucket. Then while the nest is disturbed, begin to quickly dig\n   the rest of the soil following chambers and tunnels until few \n   ants are found or bucket(s) are full. As buckets get full, \n   place covers on them.\n\n   Now, take the bucket(s) home and begin to manually sort (using\n   spoon, newspapers for the refuse soil and jars/bucket to put\n   the workers, pupae, larvae, eggs in while looking for the\n   queen(s). Once the queen is obtained, then one can decide\n   whether to keep sorting to obtain more workers or eggs, larvae\n   pupae, etc. I have found eggs are very difficult to spot in\n   many species unless they are still in wads of multiple eggs.\n\n   Under large rocks mid-day or there about: Similar process as\n   above, but usually one doesn't need to get as much soil and    \n   one may see immediately the queen. I've turned large blocks\n   many times and seen huge colonies -- with a queen scrambling\n   for cover. --Mr. Ant\n\nb. Rotting boards are good candidates. In West Virginia this\n   summer (1999), I found three species all with queens under a\n   rotting dog house we had to move.\n\n   Carpenter ant queens, at least in Michigan, can relatively\n   easily be found in late fall or early spring (in cool\n   temperatures) by locating a large tree stand with a fair\n   amount of downed and rotting logs. By carefully peeling off\n   the bark one should easily be able to find a carpenter queen\n   with her first brood (in some stage) in a egg shaped chamber\n   between bark and wood of tree. Being prepared with collection\n   jars (large mouthed mason work great) and sharp long knife.\n   One places a small section of bark over the 1.5" oval chamber\n   and cuts into the tree to extract completely the 1.5" oval\n   chamber and surrounding wood. --Mr. Ant\n\nc. Wait for the nuptial flights during the spring and summer\n   seasons. The new queen ants usually fly away after a rain\n   storm during a warm temperature. It depends where you are, and\n   the development of the colony. Most species of ants will mate\n   in late spring and summer (June through August). --Ant and \n   Angelo Scott\n\n   Nuptial flights are the best time to get queens. Many times I\n   seem to miss them for various reasons. The best reason to get\n   nuptial queens is they are MUCH less sensitive to light than\n   full blown native colonies (which I have observed take some\n   time to acclimatize to light). Also, you get to see the full\n   development cycle. It is important make sure to feed your\n   queen before she enters the chamber as this will give her a\n   much larger first brood than otherwise would have occurred.\n   She will greedily gorge herself and then you can finally put\n   her in your terrarium. --Mr. Ant\n\nd. Finding colonies with queens is best done during the first\n   really warm weather of spring. At this time, queens come near\n   the surface to
903788
Generally there is no ant which is the supervisor. However, some ants are much more likely to do construction work than other. Generally it is related with age. Younger worker tend to look after brood, older workers do the foraging but also construction. In bees there is a very established age related procedure through jobs. The bees workers wax glands are also only active during a certain age, so they can't build for all of their life. Division of labor seems to be more flexible in ants, but apart from age there is also the idea that the threshold to certain cues are a bit different between different ants, so some ants will do certain jobs in preference to other ants (like some people get always stuck with the cleaning because they get bothered by the filth most). \nFor how a nest is constructed I pasted below two links which may get you started if you care to find out more. It's just what comes up if you type in "nest construction ants". If you type in the same in google scholar you will come up with a lot more, and you can start your research from there.
360312
Ants are particularly misunderstood.  People like to think they are at least a little intelligent and highly cooperative, but in reality everything they do, all the way down to the determination of which caste they will be in, is government by innate reactions to different chemical pheromones.  They're totally mindless, but have evolved brilliantly, to the point that some species actively wage war on other species and even enslave them.  There is another species that lives in the Far East and builds earthen towers at the entrance of the colony to act as levees during monsoon season.
440541
yes, actually most species of ants do this.  the winged ants are the queens and reproductive males of the next generation.\n\nthey leave their home nests all at the same time, and have a big royal party in the air.  after they mate, the queens shed their wings, burrow into the ground and start a whole new ant colony - never to fly to again.
784330
Maybe ants get thirsty too. How do you know they're not trying to develop an ant beach front resort ? Or a city by the waterfront. What if there's some giant being staring from across the Galaxies looking at people by a beach asking the same question as you are ?
833983
yeah..though i think they just hibernate...don't they. I'm being swarmed by ladybugs,it's crazy! Don't worry though global warming isn't happening!
45152
What are of you people talking about the ants rule the population. one small caibbean ant colonies combined has the world's population. so ants rule the population (those queen ants can work...wow).
702571
no but they WILL bite. i keep a small one  in my kitchen window with my plants so that they stay bug free. i just make sure to keep an eye on him when im around. he can get pretty fiesty sometimes...
839416
Ants have highly notable evolutionary mathematical instincts - just observe their colonies, chemically-organized behavior, and communal actions (e.g. marching, hunting, defending, etc.) as ONE creature.  They often build multilayer interlocking bridges (many times out of their own bodies), for instance, for other ants to cross over - suggesting that their geometrical instincts and architectural abilities are at least 3D)   ... However, if you like to "suppose" that they possess mathematical "reasoning", then why simply limit yourself to dimensional worlds?   ... Why not suppose that a first ant geometry can describe anomalously Transdimensional worlds, as well?   ... See, it pays to think like an ant, or at least a mathematician!   lol