However, there have been recent complaints on social media about swarming flying ants be spotted in gardens and flying into people’s hair and faces.
Many wonder why the unpleasant phenomenon occurs and how the process works, since it seems to change every year.
Here’s everything you need to know about the flying ant day phenomenon and whether it has already happened in 2022.
Why do flying ants appear and hatch on the same day?
Every summer the UK sees flocks of flying ants appear across the country in a phenomenon where young queen flying ants leave the nest to create their own colony and mate with male flying ants.
Ants mate as they fly and you see so many flies because it increases their chances of reproduction.
After the pairs mate, the queen will attempt to start a new nest before losing her wings.
The nests usually have 5,000 worker ants with a single queen, but this can expand to as many as 15,000 worker ants.
While the male ants usually die within a few days of mating, worker ants are all female and usually live for a month. However, the queen ant can live for more than 10 years and will spend most of her life in the nest.
In finding a place for a new nest, the queen will dig and dig an underground chamber to nest in before laying her first eggs.
Once the larvae become adult ants, they begin to work and gather food for the nest and to feed the queen.
Male ants are only produced during “flying ant season,” according to the Royal Society of Biology, and they don’t work.
Why does flying ant day happen when it’s hot and when will it be in 2022?
Ant swarms are usually caused by temperature, so the queen ants and males tend to leave the nest when the weather is hot and humid.
They take their honeymoon flight in July or August, depending on when the weather is optimal, and this can vary by region.
Although many people believe in ‘flying ant day’, the phenomenon is actually not just one day, as there is not a single day where the ants all fly at once.
Instead, it’s more of a season, with several peaks, over the course of two months when the creatures take flight to mate. At these peak times, you’re likely to see people tweeting about “flying ant day.”