Pharaoh ant new nest is formed, queens are not a necessity; workers can raise new queens after finding a suitable nest site. In pharaoh ant colonies new males and queen ants can be produced when the existing fertile queen is removed. When queens are absent, the workers in the nest can do two things: either rear existing sexual larvae or transport sexual larvae from other bud nests or from the main nest to its own nest. However, when there are fertile queens still within the nest, the worker ants will cannibalize the sexual larvae and will either reject or consume sexual larvae
Red harvester ant high availability of food and good foraging conditions, therefore a favorable cost-benefit ratio for the foragers exists. If the patroller return rate is too high, it may be a warning of danger, such as the sighting of a predatory lizard. A lower return rate could indicate lack of available food, or heavy competition Ant foraging is guided by chemical signals that lead the ants up to 50–60 m from the nest at times. Once an ant has decided to forage, it will almost always continue until it has found food to take back to the nest; 90% of returning foragers