Life Cycle of an Ant Colony

An ant colony begins in the founding stage.

After mating, the queen(s) starts a new nest and raises her first worker offspring.

This is the only time in a queen’s life that she does work in addition to laying eggs.

During the growth stage, the colony grows larger by producing more workers.

The workers now perform all the colony’s jobs except laying eggs.

This period may last for several years.

When the colony grows large enough, it enters the reproductive stage.

Now the colony produces new queens and males.

These winged adults fly away to mate with ants from other colonies.

The queens then start the next generation of colonies.

Colonies may reproduce year after year until their queen(s) dies.