How do they spread and how long do colonies take to establish?
Fire ants spread naturally through mating flights and budding and may also be spread by flooding: • a mated female (queen) can fly up to 2 km • a newly mated queen finds a suitable nesting site, sheds her wings and starts a new colony. Human-assisted spread: • via shipments of infested nursery stock, soil, or other high-risk materials • potentially many other materials and containers stored in a fire ant infested area. Fire ant nests can have a single queen or multiple queens. A new queen will lay up to 20 eggs initially. Eggs hatch in 7-10 days and become adults after 9-15 days. A queen can increase egg laying up to 800 eggs per day after initial hatching.
