October 2019 – Brennah's Backyard

Flying Ants

swarming ants — Ant workers and queens on a leaf

A couple of times this year, I have witnessed the ant colonies in the yard swarming. Or at least, that’s what I’m inclined to call it; as a beekeeper, swarming means colony reproduction to me. But the process is different for ants, and I’m not sure swarming is the right word for their colony reproduction. All the colonies send out their young queens and drones (is drones what it’s called for ants?) to mate and presumably hibernate and start new colonies next spring. The workers do not accompany them as honey bees do. Each colony sends out dozens if not hundreds of queens. The queens seemed reluctant to leave; it looked like the worker ants were herding them out, and appeared to be chasing and even biting the young queens. The queens have good reason to be reluctant; their odds for surviving their flight are terrible. There’s a reason each colony sends out so many.

ants swarming — A queen being herded to the edge of a leaf

By the time I started taking pictures, most of the queens had taken flight already, (this first part happens impressively quickly) and many of those that were left had damaged looking wings. They were trying to leave, and the workers were insisting, but their wings were causing them difficulty.

queen and worker ants — This queen is actually missing one of her wings

ant queens and workers — Ant queens and workers on a leaf. A couple of them have slightly battered looking wings.

ant queen and workers — This queen seems to have good wings

ant workers and queens

All colonies of a particular species of ant sends out their winged offspring at once, and for a few hours, the air is thick with flying ants. Not too surprisingly, any creatures that like to eat insects see this as a brief opportunity to feast.

jumping spider eating queen ant — This is how most of the flying ants will end up; as food, not necessarily for a jumping spider specifically, but for many different predatory insects, spiders and birds.

I have seen ant colonies sending out their queens in previous years, but this year, not only did I see it happen twice, it seemed like there were just a lot more ants. It seemed like every few feet was another clump of ants, sending off their young queens. ant queen and workers

Cool Weather Crops

Fall can be a very productive time for the garden. All the cool weather crops we’ve planted for winter are reaching maturity now, and it hasn’t yet become cold enough to kill the warm weather crops (which right now is mostly just tomatoes, since we weren’t able to plant much for summer due to the flooding this spring). Most of the cool weather crops we planted should continue to be harvestable into winter, and although options are fairly limited now, there are still seeds that can be planted. For the most part, though, plants grow very slowly during the dead of winter, so it is important to have most of what you want to be eating in the winter pretty much full size by late fall.

endive and escarole — Endive and escarole, but which is which is confusing with these varieties since they both look more typical of the other type… but it doesn’t matter too much, as they taste similarly. They are both the same species and are actually a type of chicory.

mustard green leaf — The frilly edge of a mustard leaf.

This is Tokyo bekana, a plant in the mustard family that is mild enough to use like lettuce.

The purple veins of a variety of flowering broccoli

Mizuna, another mustard/cabbage family crop. Sometimes we may rely on this plant family a little too much… it has a huge amount of variety, but many of the ‘different crops’ are actually the same species. This is the same species as the flowering broccoli and the Tokyo bekana, as well as other crops we’ve planted that I haven’t included here.

tomato flowers — Most of the tomatoes around just came up on their own, and this one came up pretty close to winter, but nobody wants to just pull it out…

Mushroom Gallery

Mushrooms are not my most familiar subject, especially as far as specific types go. Most of the ones I can specifically recognize are the distinctive looking ones (exactly the ones you’d expect). Mushrooms are undoubtedly worth knowing about, but so far I have mostly just been observing (and photographing) them. And I’ve been spotting some interesting ones lately.

bird's nest mushroom — This is some sort of bird’s nest mushroom, but these ‘nests’ are not open yet…

bird's nest mushrooms — Some more bird’s nest mushrooms, and these ones are very ripe (and smushed together pretty tightly).

These mushrooms were growing from a chunk of earth torn out of the ground by a fallen tree in the woods. This is the spot where they were thickest, which was in deep shadow, and it was dusk, so this picture is pretty dim, but it captures the scene quite accurately.

turkey-tail mushrooms? — These are the mushrooms I think might actually be turkey-tails. These were on the fallen cherry tree last February, and the only ones I’m including in this series that weren’t spotted in the last couple months.