The ants do not eat the foliage that they remove from plants. Instead, they cut it 
up into small fragments, shape it into small pellets, and carry it into their under- 
ground chambers. Here it is placed upon so-called gardens, where it serves as a 
medium for the growth of a fungus. It is this fungus that serves as the food of the 
colony. Through the summer, most of the foliage is brought into the nest during the 
night; in the fall, winter, and spring, most of it is brought in during the day, unless it 
is too cold or wet (369). 
Winged males and females appear during May and June and fly from the colony 
and mate. Mated females lose their wings and dig into the soil where they establish 
nests. Here they become the queens of new colonies. 
The Allegheny mound ant, Formica exsectoides Forel, 1s a serious pest of young 
eastern white, red, and Scotch pines, eastern redcedar, and spruce in the Eastern 
and Northeastern States. It nests in the ground and constructs mounds that may be 
up to 1.2 m in height and 1.8 m across. In forested areas, these mounds are most 
often found in openings or along the edges of stands. All vegetation, except large 
trees, may be destroyed in an area 12 to 15 m in diameter around a mound. Trees 
from 2 to 15 years old are especially susceptible to attack. Damage may be severe in 
forest plantations. The adult ant is about 3 to 6 mm long. The head 1s reddish brown 
and about as wide as it is long, the thorax is reddish brown and feathered, the anal 
region is reddish and surrounded by a fringe of hairs, and the legs are sometimes 
brownish or dark red. 
The Allegheny mound ant does not feed on trees or other vegetation. Its food 
consists of living and dead insects and honeydew excreted by various species of 
sucking insects. It appears that the only reason it attacks vegetation is to kill it to 
Keep it from shadowing the mounds. Trees are killed by the injection of formic acid 
into their tissues. Apparently this results in the coagulation of cell contents and the 
prevention of the downward movement of foods in the inner bark (976). 
The life history of the Allegheny mound ant is not too well understood, but this 
ant is known to forage for food from April to September and to spend the winter in 
its nest. There are several generations per year and both queens and workers are 
known to live for several years. 
Crematogaster cerasi (Fitch) occurs from southern Canada to Georgia. Its nests 
are found in the ground, in rotting stumps, logs, or branches, and in empty nuts on 
the ground. Nests also may be found in various parts of houses such as the roof, 
siding, ceiling, and porch, but most often in and around door and window frames. 
C. clara Mayr occurs from Indiana to New Jersey and south to Texas and Florida, 
but is most common in the lower Mississippi Valley. Its nests are found in cane 
stems, branches, trees, rotten stumps, and sometimes in the woodwork of houses. 
C. lineolata (Say) occurs in southern Canada and throughout the Eastern United 
States. It constructs fairly large nests, usually in the soil, but also in logs, stumps, 
dead trees, or in the woodwork of houses. When alarmed, the workers bite fiercely 
and give off a repulsive odor. C. laeviuscula Mayr and C. ashmeadi Mayr have 
been recorded nesting in various dead hardwoods in Mississippi. 
The Argentine ant, /ridomyrmex humilis (Mayr), an introduced species first 
recorded in this country at New Orleans in 1891, now occurs in many localities in 
the Southern States and California. Local infestations have also been found in St. 
Louis, Baltimore, and Chicago (///0). Indoors, it feeds on almost every kind of 
food, especially sweets, meats, pastries, fruit, eggs, dairy products, animal fats, 
and vegetable oils; outdoors, it feeds partly on honeydew produced by aphids, 
mealybugs, and scale insects. By fostering and protecting the latter insects from 
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