Lasius Ants are also known as meadow ants, the species spends most of its life underground in meadows and lawns. The nests are often completely overgrown by grass, sometimes the nest site locations can be found by looking for small mounds of loose soil material between the grass stalks.
Lasius Ants will also build nests under large rocks or concrete slabs. They will tend aphid colonies within their nests to feed on the honeydew that they produce, the nest site will eventually become obvious as the aphids clear sections of grass or portions of gardens.
The queen is up to 9 mm long and the males are about 5 mm and the workers are up to 4 mm long. Their colour varies from yellow to light brown, with the queen and males being a bit darker.
The yellow meadow ant feeds on the honeydew from root aphids, which they breed in their nests. During winter, the aphids themselves are eaten. As a consequence of their feeding habits, the species is seldom seen, but sometimes you can spot them when they forage outside the nest.
Winged ants can be seen on warm days and evenings in July and August. This is one of the rare times that they are seen, as workers push the young winged ants out of the nest to create new colonies, these new colonies are formed by multiple queens but later on, the queens will battle until only one queen remains.