Banded sugar ant meat ants, which have been observed blocking banded sugar ant nesting holes with pebbles and soil to prevent them from leaving their nest during the early hours of the day. The ants counter this by preventing meat ants from leaving their nest by blocking their nesting holes with debris, a behaviour known as nest-plugging. If meat ant nests are encroached by trees or other shade, banded sugar ants may invade and take over the nest, since the health of the colony may deteriorate from overshadowing. Members of an affected meat ant colony later move to a nearby satellite nest that
Little black ant Workers may forage in households, but nest in soil mounds. It also tends aphids such as the soybean aphid ("Aphis glycines"), harvesting honeydew. During mid-summer the queens and males perform the nuptial flight, mating in midair. The males die shortly after. Each queen constructs a new nest, sheds its wings, and lays eggs. The development from egg to adult takes about a month. In a laboratory setting queens were found to live about one year and workers about four months. Little black ant The little black ant ("Monomorium minimum") is a species of ant native to North America. It is