The black garden queen (Lasius niger) ant plays a crucial role in the survival and growth of her colony. As the sole reproducer, she is responsible for laying thousands of eggs throughout her life ...

It’s good to be the queen—the ant queen, that is—because mating does ... from which they’ll fertilize tens of millions of eggs in a lifetime. The researchers cultured a fungus that ...

The queen lays the eggs while female workers look after the queen ... they scatter to maximise the chance of mating between different colonies and reduce inbreeding. An ant colony can only expand so ...

The common perception is that the queen's only task is to lay eggs—and that this attribute ... has demonstrated that in certain ant colonies, the social environment can play a crucial role ...

ADAM:How would an ant be born? Well inside a colony there's a queen, she's a really big ant and she lays all the eggs that produce all of the ants in the colony. CHILD #2:Where is the queen?

NARRATOR:'In a leafcutter colony there is a queen ant, and she is much bigger than the other ants. And her job is to lay eggs. NARRATOR:'Then there are lots of different types of worker ant.