Wood Ants are a fascinating species.  My earliest memories of them were seeing their huge nests made from forest detrius like pine needles, on Brownsea Island off the Dorset Coast in the UK.  There were hundreds of nests.  Since that time I have only ever seen one nest, and that was in the south west of Bristol, which I stumbled on after seeing them on a path in the woods. I followed the trail back to a nest.  Nests are approximately 1 metre high to 2 metres wide, and will extend underground with thousands of chambers and tunnels.  These are some of the biggest nests known.  They are typically temperature controlled between 25 and 30 degrees celcius despite the weather.

They are quite a large ant by British standards being between 5 and 11 millimetres in length, while the queens are up to 17mm.  Nests can achieve 300,000 in number so don't sit on one by accident, but normally are 100,000 strong. As many as 100 queens can be in one nest, meaning this is a polygyn species.

Wood Ants eat mainly other insects like caterpillars and spiders. They hunt by way of leaving foraging trails anywhere up to 30 metres from the main nest.  As well as other insects, wood ants also milk aphids in the same way as the Black Garden Ants do.

Their preferred areas are sunny spots within pine woodlands.  Sadly these are declining with deforestation, and therefore so are wood ant species. Wood Ants start to rear their new queens and males during the spring, and the nuptial flights take place on warm June evenings where they will mate with other nests males.  When the queens have mated, they will land, shed their wings, and hopefully establish a new nest.