An Ant Migration

It's the strangest thing. The first time we noticed it was Friday evening: red ants were streaming across the driveway, diagonally, and over the railroad tie and into the front yard. Young'un and I traced their path, he investigating their destination while I tried to determine where they were coming from. All I had to do was scan across the crispy yellowish grass and soon I'd see the motion of the ant parade. I followed them across the side yard, into the neighbor's yard, almost to the big tree... and there the trail went cold. I just couldn't see a source. Meanwhile, Young'un was in the middle of our front yard, and he'd found their new home: a small hole in the ground, a bit smaller in diameter than a pencil.

The first ants we'd seen were empty-handed (or empty-pincered), but the ones on the driveway were all carrying little white blobs of varying sizes. We determined that these must be eggs! They were moving the eggs! Some of them were so large they were probably larvae. Soon the egg-bearers began reaching the hole, and down they went. Ants were coming out of the hole, but none of them ever brought eggs out. There was a lot of activity around the new home. There were a few black ants in the neighborhood, the same size as the red ones or maybe a little smaller, and they'd occasionally wander into the middle of the busy red-ant traffic. We wondered if they'd fight -- but no, they seemed to check each other out and go their separate ways.

We probably watched them for fifteen or twenty minutes. I found myself humming the theme music to Young'un's "Sim Ant" computer game, and he recognized it and joined in. We hoped we might see them bring in the queen, but there was no sign of her. She was probably already in the nest; perhaps she'd put down the scent they were all following.

Then yesterday evening we saw another migration of red ants across the driveway. This time they were coming from a different direction in the side yard, but their destination was the same as the ones on Friday. Again, lots and lots of activity around the nest in the front yard; again, black ants wandered into their midst and then wandered back out unmolested.

We've really been enjoying our ant-watching. It's been a long time since Young'un played "Sim Ant", but now he's going to install it on his computer and fire it up again.