Just saw the queen of the carpenter ant colony. She looks great. Hard to believe she's almost 4 years old! She's still huge shiny & black like when I met her & saw her lay her first eggs.

She's clearly planning for a big expansion in summer. She lives in the upper log, but her daughters carry all the eggs to the other nest to raise them there. (So, just because you find eggs doesn't mean the queen is nearby.)

Had a big pile of eggs with her just now, daughters frantically carrying them off.

Carpenter ants love to have multiple locations. They keep the queen in the most secure one. In the wild these could be dozens of meters away from each other.

In fact, given what I've seen I think they make a point of NOT keeping eggs and pupae near the queen. That might be a way to ensure the colony can't be destroyed just because one location is ruined.

And larvae are a target for many predators, other raiding ants, even bears.

@futurebird i've dated bears before and none of them were interested in eating ant larvae (as far as i know)

@gay_ornithischians

Even the ones into camping and survival??

In fact, given what I've seen I think they make a point of NOT keeping eggs and pupae near the queen. That might be a way to ensure the colony can't be destroyed just because one location is ruined.

And larvae are a target for many predators, other raiding ants, even bears.