Camponotus Vagus flight in August???

[Tourist]

Buon giorno, colleagues!

I'm visiting Liguria for vacation and interested in ants. In the garden of the house I'm staying I found a beautiful colony of Camponotus Vagus. Imagine my surprise when I saw at least 7 winged queens on the nest yesterday! But no males

Therefore, I have few questions:
1. Are those ants Camponotus Vagus at all? See pics
2. Why there were queens and no males? Is their flight separated in time? Or should yhe fly from different nest even?
3. Is it an abnormality caused by an infection or parasite?
4. Could it be any kind of partenogenetic queens that wouldn't require males?

Best,
Tourist

[Guglielmo]

Hi Tourist,
I reply in english, but being this is an italian forum, next time please try to write in our language (there are many translators online you can use) since there are many users who don’t know english.

I'm visiting Liguria for vacation and interested in ants. In the garden of the house I'm staying I found a beautiful colony of Camponotus Vagus. Imagine my surprise when I saw at least 7 winged queens on the nest yesterday! But no males
Therefore, I have few questions:
1. Are those ants Camponotus vagus at all? See pics
2. Why there were queens and no males? Is their flight separated in time? Or should yhe fly from different nest even?
3. Is it an abnormality caused by an infection or parasite?
4. Could it be any kind of partenogenetic queens that wouldn't require males?

1. Yes
2. Nuptial flights are long over for this species. So males are all dead or not born yet( their lifespan is just a few weeks)
3. I don’t think so. they are probably new born queens that missed the flight season and now explore the outside of the nest
4. Unmated queens can just produce males. Partogenesis doesn’t occur in these ants.

Bye and enjoy your holidays!