136 LIFE STORIES OF AUSTRALIAN INSECT^ 



management of the home on their shoulders. The 

 queen or mother never leaves the nest and grows 

 timid and avoids the light. She just lays the 

 eggs and the workers remove them to the *'egg 

 chamber." 



Sometimes a ''mother" is found by some of the 

 workers of the old nest, and they then stay with her 

 and help her found a new colony. The mother's 

 life is not then so strenuous. In some cases two 

 or three ant-mothers from the "summer flight," get 

 together under a stone, etc., and they together found 

 the new home which starts wnth three queens instead 

 of one, for ant queens always live amicably together, 

 differing from bees which have only one queen in 

 each hive. Not every mother-ant who starts a 

 nest is able to finish it, for some are not v\^ell nour- 

 ished and have not the strength or food-supply 

 in the body to enable them to keep the nest going: 

 and so during the long waiting period while the 

 eggs mature and the babies are being fed, the food 

 supply gives out. and the babies and mother die. 

 So that out of the numerous female ants v^hich fly 

 from the old nest, only comparatively few succeed 

 in founding a new ant colony. Ants have the ad- 

 vantage over most other hymenopterous insects in 

 the convenient positions of their nests, and of 

 materials from which their nests are made. Bees 

 and wasps have to hunt for materials and work 

 these up gradually in order to build their cells. But 

 most ants use the soil as it stands, as material, or 

 l)uild in the sand under stones, logs, etc., and are 

 protected by tlTese. 



