A couple days ago in late afternoon I noticed swarms of insects flying around our big oak tree. I thought they were mosquitos at first but they weren't. This made me a bit nervous. Did we have some strange infestation of critters in our tree? There were a lot of winged creatures out there highlighted by a setting sun.
We had our small church group here for pot luck later that day and I mentioned this phenomenon. Someone quickly said I had witnessed flying ants. When a colony is overcrowded ants fly out to form new colonies.
Flying ants in Minnesota? After a summer of Tiger Beetles that I mistook for Emerald Ash Borers and picking Japanese Beetles off my new scrubs and rose bushes I wasn't thrilled to have flying ants.
I have been reading a series of fictional books about "The #1 Ladies Detective Agency" set in Botswana. These people consider flying ants a delicacy and eat them. We didn't do that. We just hope we don't have a lot more ants around our deck next year and the only "flying ants" I want to see again are Aunt Margaret, Aunt Diane and Aunt Barbara.
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