Skippy: (10. Apr 2007 14:21)

I also think ,Lasius flavus have swarm time in summer ,in Bratislava is it ordinary somethimes between 10. July - 25. July

acerola: (10. Apr 2007 16:38)

In a hungarian forum I get another possible identification for _my_ ant: Prenolepis nitens which is a kind of honey ant. It is swarming in early spring. The idea came from an ant expert working in a university. I now searching the net (and at home I will search my books) for Prenolepis. So far it sounds good.
What is your opinion?

willi461: (10. Apr 2007 17:14)

Yes honey ants r way cool.Wish you could buy them.

JimmyVe: (10. Apr 2007 17:17)

I don't now if they are honey ants, but i heard they are really difficult to keep.

acerola: (10. Apr 2007 23:07)

All signs shows it is Prenolepis nitens. Prenolepsis has 6 teeth in its mandible (Lasius has more than 6) it also has a heart shaped forward pointed petiole. And the early swarming time is also matching (I found mine 1th of April).
I also has some image from mine. Skippy, you can check the similarities.
http://img53.imageshack.us/img53/9343/img510701gl2.jpg
http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/2818/img509701ut7.jpg
http://img73.imageshack.us/img73/8845/img508101ko3.jpg

deadmeat30: (10. Apr 2007 23:41)

WOW those pictures are so amazing! really nice acerola! wish i had a good camera to get some pictures of my ants!

keep the nice pictures coming in!

Alan

Skippy: (11. Apr 2007 10:30)

I think it is that Prenolepis ,but what it doing in Slovakia???

acerola: (11. Apr 2007 11:54)

I found mine in Budapest, it is not far away from the Slovak border. I found this species in my older book also, so it is a well known species in Hungary. It has a slightly different name in the older books Prenolepis imparis var. nitens.
You can read from the American kind Prenolepis imparis a lot in the internet. If you find something interesting about keeping them, let me know.
I hope its life is similar here than its American cousin. The American ant (winter ant or little honey ant) life is very different from most of the other ant. It is foraging in winter from November to April, otherwise it is completely closed up.
You can read everything from here:
http://bio.fsu.edu/~tschink/publications/1987-3.pdf

By the way two other guys from the Hungarian forum also found a queen. I'm hope somebody can raise it to a full colony.

JimmyVe: (11. Apr 2007 14:38)

Very nice pictures Acerola, she already has eggs. ;)
I never heart about this species but they look nice.
I guess if you found them there they just need the temperature and humidity they would have in the wild.
Looks like they are in deed active in the winter.

Very beautiful ants. Hope you can raise them into a colony. Good luck.

acerola: (11. Apr 2007 15:12)

I learned since my last post, that the forage time of November to April is for the ants of Florida. Maybe they forage longer in more cool places like central Europe.

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