This nasty little brute is a flying ant. Yes, they fly–at least the males and the queen take wing when it’s time to make thousands of little ants.
Last night I was revising (yet again) Minerva James and the God of War when one of these little monsters flew right into my laptop screen. As you can see, it looks sort of like a wasp. It startled and annoyed me. I escorted it out of the room and kept working.
When I came into my small living room, the flying ants were having a stag party. They were all over the ceiling, the walls, buzzing around my lamp. About 20 of the little brutes. Far too many to escort out.
My online research says that they only come out when it gets warmer (it warmed up yesterday here in the desert) and are ready to mate. Somewhere in the group was the queen, my internet research said, though they all looked alike to me.
Usually I am a live-and-let-live kind of guy. I don’t kill insects as a matter of course if I can catch them and release them outside–or, as in the case of a wolf spider, if I can let it roam my house eating small pests.
But this Flying Ant Invasion was too much. There were too many of them to ignore. And they kept running into my head. So I had to got at them with my only weapon: a spray cleaner that got them wet and irritated.
I don’t carry pesticides in my house in case my ex girlfriend comes to visit and decides she wants to finish the assassination she botched three times previously. So I had to use a gentle organic cleaner to take the flying ants out of the sky. Then I smushed them.
I’m sure there are still a few I missed. And I’m pretty sure the wily Queen Ant escaped the spray cleaner of doom. The internet says there’s likely a nest in my wall, something that won’t be as destructive as termites (that was my other candidate, but turns out they aren’t that wood-burrowing insect) but still problematic for the landlord.
I’m pretty sure when I get home tonight I will be Flying Ant free. So I can continue to work on “War” in the vain hope it will pull into shape and interest an agent or a publisher.
In the meantime, don’t you think “Flying Ants” is a great name for a rock band?
Mark Bruce, Writer 