32 
Psyche 
[Vol. 95 
Table 3. % of workers of one nest observed at the entrance of another nest. 
0 
Destination nest 
1 10 
11 
Number of 
workers 
0 
75.4% 
10.6% 
14% 
0% 
236 
Source 
1 
5 
93.2 
1.8 
0 
163 
nest 
10 
22.6 
11.8 
65.6 
0 
93 
11 
7.1 
38.1 
3.6 
51.2 
84 
576 
Additional field experiments confirmed the existence of related- 
ness between interacting societies. In July 1984, 3 colonies were 
orphaned and all the workers marked with a dot of paint. They were 
abandoned the next day either at their old nest, or at a distance of 
two hundred meters. In the former case we observed numerous 
transports of workers and brood in direction of neighboring nests, 
whereas in the latter case no transport occurred (Lenoir and 
Cagniant 1986). Transports are probably possible if the abandoned 
workers are closely related to the resident ants. When the colonies 
are near, they are probably related by budding. We tested this 
hypothesis at St-Hippolyte (Pyr. Or.) during 1986. When a colony is 
excavated to remove the queen, although workers are not marked, it 
is easy to observe transports in direction of neighboring colonies. 
This phenomenon is possible because immature workers found by 
foragers in the outside arena are retrieved into the nest. (Nowbahari 
and Lenoir, MS). Bonavita and Clement (1986) observed the same 
behavior with Camponotus vagus nurses where foragers retrieve all 
ants (callows, nurses) into the nest which are not normally there. 
To experiment on the closure of societies, workers were trans- 
ferred to the entrance of another society. A worker was captured 
when leaving its nest, marked and placed near the entrance (less 
than 5 cm) of an alien nest in a small box. When the ant was calm 
the box was opened and the behavior of the ant noted for 5 min. 
Five recipient nests were chosen, the intruders coming from various 
nests more or less distant (max. 50 m). The results are presented in 
Table 4. 
84% of control workers enter their own nest within the 5 min 
observation, while only 22.5% of displaced workers entered the for- 
eign nest. It is not known if these ants were adopted or were later 
rejected. 4 of them were observed during the following days: they 
