Flying ants

Most of the flying ants in a swarm are males - they take flight in pursuit of females which fly off to start new nests. The flights usually happen on dry, often rather muggy days with little wind. The males generally die after a few hours and only the mated females survive to start a new colony. Ants and termites both have the same behaviour, and as far as I know only fly for the purpose of mating.

Dunno what Harvest Flies are, though. Can anyone describe them?

 

I don't think I've come across them.

Last summer barley was in the fields, this year it's wheat. The things I'm describing are tiny black flying insects that make you itch. They don't bite but they love dive bombing into my glass of wine!

Can cope with almost anything but cockroaches.

TO

 

They sound like thrips, TO - those tiny elongated little beggars that get under the glass in your pictures and places like that. We've even got 'em in the microwave display window!!! We've always called them "thunder flies". Does that sound right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrip

 

Could be, yep. When I moved here people called them harvest flies so I assumed it had something to do with the arable crops. They seem to be quite active late afternoon to dusk when they would come into the house.

None so far this year, maybe the weather or to do with harvest times?

TO

 

They are not thunder flies. We had thunder flies in Alabama that attacked us out on the river in the boat and they are tiny horrid things in their millions, covered you in a moment :eek: not like the things I saw on the IoW.

 

No, my lot don't travel in swarms. They just flit about, they are quite harmless unless I'm pottering about with a glass of sauvignon.

TO

 

They have been leaving various nests in my garden for a few days now.

A few years ago I was playing bowls and using a black mark on the grass as a marker for delivering woods. I wondered why I started getting my line wrong until I discovered my mark was a flying ant that had started to walk.

 

They are thrips that you describe T&O there are many types, lots of them being plant specific, the one we are usually troubled with in summer is the corn thrip it usually takes to the air when the corn is beig cut some people know them as corn flies, they also take off on hot days when conditions are humid and are known as thunderflies, I encounter them a lot when out on my velo.sometimes I look like I have been through an oil slick when they stick to my sweat.

 

Hi Walnut, that would explain why I haven't seen them yet, the fields haven't been harvested.

It was muggy last year so thrips sound right.

TO