{"id":28316,"date":"2019-06-15T12:28:55","date_gmt":"2019-06-15T11:28:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/?p=28316"},"modified":"2019-06-20T14:23:36","modified_gmt":"2019-06-20T13:23:36","slug":"ant-hill-mob","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/ant-hill-mob\/","title":{"rendered":"Ant Hill Mob"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

A few weeks ago as part of tidying up the garden we dug out a long-standing ant-hill that was in the middle of the lawn. The ants weren’t too happy, but they’d had a long run of several years undisturbed and it was time for them to move on.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The lawn has now recovered with some re-seeding, and the ants – so it appears – have found a perfectly good new home. This was the sight that greeted me when I opened our compost bin earlier in the week.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"ant<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Ant colony with a huge number of eggs<\/del> pupae. The dark areas are <\/em>
tunnels leading down into the compost bin <\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

You can clearly see the tunnels they are building down into the compost, a little bit like a hive. There are a huge number of eggs <\/del>pupae (larger than the ants) on the surface, plus some large winged ants, though vast majority are the standard small worker ant. I’m trying not to disturb them too often as once daylight hits the surface they go into a frenzy of moving everything.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"ant<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

There are several winged ants among the mass<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"ants<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\"ants<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Close-up of ants and eggs <\/del>pupae<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The major problem with the colony is that they make the compost more or less unusable, so we may have to start again entirely. The ants are safe for the time-being! <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Camera note: all photos taken with the Canon 1DX Mark II and EF 100mm f\/2.8L macro IS USM lens.<\/em> <\/p>\r\n\r\nedited 20\/6\/19 to correct references to eggs to ‘pupae’<\/em>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few weeks ago as part of tidying up the garden we dug out a long-standing ant-hill that was in the middle of the lawn. The ants weren’t too happy, but they’d had a long run of several years undisturbed and it was time for them to move on. The lawn has now recovered with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1226,991,3],"tags":[240],"class_list":["post-28316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ants","category-insects-2","category-wildlife","tag-ants","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t