Life in the ant hill

From the first group of eggs to hatch come the workers, and nursemaids who w ill take care of the fast-growing family of baby ants and of the eggs themselves before they hatch. The workers provide the queen with food, and keep the passages of the ant home clean at all times. There will be many hatches of worker ants, but when it is time for the mating season the queen ant lays eggs that will hatch into future queen ants, and male ants which are not useful at any work.

The job of some of the ants is to build  a well-ventilated, well-arranged home, and to make additions to it as the colony increases and needs larger quarters. An ant hill looks like an insignificant heap of sand, but inside it is cleverly divided into passages, food storage sections, ventilation tunnels, egg-hatching rooms, and queen's quarters. The builder ants are responsible for this home. Other ants are the dairymen of the ant colony. Just as human beings keep cows for milk, there are ants who herd tiny insects called aphids and plant lice, for the sweet fluid that can be milked from them.

They take good care of their herds, too, protecting them from other insects that might be dangerous to them, as a farmer would protect his cows from wolves. They even carry the smaller creatures to new plants or leaves, where the aphids or plant lice will find better "pasturage." Still other ants in the colony are posted as guards. These are the policemen or soldier ants. If danger is likely from any direction, they run through the passages and warn others to be on the alert. Ants communicate with each other by means of their antennas, or feelers.