Welcome to You Ask Andy

Grace Calhoun, age 10, of Sioux City, Iowa, for her question:

How do ants build their homes?

The usual ant nest is a warren of tunnels dug in the ground. The loose earth from the tunnels piles in a little hill. It is mach and kept in constant repair by the worker ants. They build it by moving the soil, crumb by crumb. Each little worker has a pair of strong pincers built into her jaws. She uses them to lift and carry and they are so strong she can carry a burden almost as large as herself.

The ant colony is a matriarchal society. The matriarch is the queen mother. The colony begins when the young, winged queen and her princes take to the air in the marriage flight. Then they fall to the ground, where the helpless princes soon perish. The queen nestles in the loose soil, rubs off her wings and waits for her eggs to mature.

As a rule the queen mother herself tends the first brood of little ones. They are worker ants and, when the next babies arrive, they arcs ready to act as nursemaids. Thereafter the queen's only duty is to lay eggs. For a while all the young ants turn out to be the worker type ‑the spinster aunts of the colony. Later on a few young princes and princesses are born. For in every ant nest there are three castes, each with its special duties. There era the queen, the drapes or princes and the workers.

Some ant colonies also have a soldier caste. These are lady workers equipped with strong jaws which they use to defend the nest. The tunnels inside the nest seem to run higgledy piggledy all over the place. And only the busy worker ants could tell you what all of them are for. Here you will find a tiny pocket of eggs, there a cache of milky white cocoons. Are these hideaways the nurseries? Only for a moment. For bare comes a group of nursemaids to curry the helpless eggs and cocoons upstairs.

The baby carrying goes on all day. The helpless little ones are carried upstairs during the day where they can feel the warmth of the sun through the soil. If things look very safe, the nursemaids may even carry the babies outside where they can enjoy the sunshine and feel a real airing. At night the babies are carried deep into the nest where they are safe from ground frost.

All this baby moving requires a roomy home. And the workers provide plenty of tunnel space. Even when the nest is big enough the repair work never ends. Tunnels are always collapsing. This is no tragedy, for the walls are only loose crumbs of soil. The workers get busy and move these loose crumbs out of the way.

Not all ants are able to build nests. The Amazon ant is an example. These fellows are slaw raiders. They steal eggs, pupae and cocoons from the nests of smaller ants and keep them as building slaves. There is a certain red ant who cannot raise her first brood of workers. But she does have a few soldier ants. These soldiers rain a nest of black ants and steal enough slaves to tend the first brood.

Most ants keep pets of some kind. And some grow beds of fungus and others keep aphid cows. All these various projects are provided with proper room in the nest. And there are always busy workers ready, willing and able to build and repair when needed.

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