The black garden ant otherwise known as L.niger and is found all over Europe as well as some parts of North America, and even in small pockets of Asia. It is a Monogyn species meaning that it only has one queen per nest. They breed by means of nuptial flight which will happen at various times in the year throughout the species' range.  In Europe, the nuptial flights occur mainly in July and August, and can happen a few times during these months as different nests release the queens and males to mate at different times. In North America, these flights take place generally in the autumn.  Flights can contain thousands of winged males and females. L. niger is considered a pest in most areas, although personally I believe they are just another animal making its way in the world...so leave them be!

Black ants will eat pretty much anything given to them. Sweet items go down extremely well. Protein is got by scavenging dead insects.  They will also eat honeydew which is excreted by aphids.  Of course, the aphids are protected by the ants and therefore seen as a pest by gardeners.

Black garden ants often explore their surroundings quite extensively during early summer months in an effort to increase the food supply to their queen and her young, and also as a way of testing new ground in preparation for the nests' summer flight. In some cases, these explorations lead to a burrowing through mortar and brick. The usual response from humans when they see several ants in their house (usually the kitchen) is to panic and reach for the insecticide powder. A better method of eradicating ants from the house is to ensure that all food surfaces are clean and free from sugar and sweet substances that may tempt the ants frequently to return for food. Even in flight, the ants will soon realize that they have chosen the wrong place to start their mating flight. If left alone, the colony will nearly always choose an external wall to use as their official take off.

Ideally Black ants should be kept in an ant farm in numbers up to 100, thereafter, moved to large basin areas.  They are extremely easy to keep after the initial quite period. Requiring room temperature of between 20 to 25 degrees centigrade in the summer months, and a cooler temperature during the winter as this species will go into a hibernation period normally.

If you catch a queen straight after nuptial flights, then you must catch one without wings.  Put her into an antfarm that is filled with earth/sand mixture that is slightly damp.  Start off a tunnel for her with a nitting needle for instance.  Leave her in a quiet dark place for a few weeks, and see what happens.  Normally when left alone, she will make herself at home in the farm, and close up the tunnel behind her.  This will mean that she is completely enclosed by the soil/sand, but don't worry, this is normal.  She will take moisture from her surroundings, and food will come from within herself.  She will digest her own wing muscles (she won't ever need them again) to keep herself going, and also feed her eggs with it.  The eggs will grow through the different stages of growth for about 6 weeks until they are born.

The eggs, are called eggs when they are small and round.  They will soon grow into J shaped eggs called Larvae.  The larvae will then turn into pupae.  Pupae look like white ants that are all folded up into a neat package.  The pupae will eventually turn into cocoons with this species, and born from the cocoons will be callow ants.  Callow ants are the new born ants and they look very pale in colour, and are very small and slow compared to the the older ants.

After a while, and when there are enough workers, the queen will stop doing anything except for laying eggs.  The workers from her first brood will do every thing from then on, and that includes opening up the old tunnel to the surface so that they can go and forage for food and water.

The nest will continue to grow for a while until the winter. The ants will have taken lots of food into the nest in preparation for the winter, but they will still go into a state of hibernation until they wake again in the spring.