How is the next queen ant determined?

The manner in which a Queen ant is chosen differs between the species. One thing the soecies seem to have in common is that, unlike bees, potential Queen ants are not fed a special diet to enable them to become queens.

In some species, the Queen is chosen while she is still in the egg. And within these species, in some cases the egg must come from a Queen that is already two years old, or from a Queen that has been exposed to cold, usually due to overwintering. This seems to be the case with Harvester ants.

In other species, the Queen is simply one that is elevated from the common ranks of the worker ants: after her promotion, her hormone levels change and she becomes fertile, in a process still not understood by entomologists. This occurs in the case of jumping ants, whereby if a queen dies, another worker can simply take her place.