abstract: During a year, the workers of a medium-sized nest of red wood ants, which is characterized by a territory of 0.27 ha and a number of 10 workers running out per sec at 15°C, collected on average 6.1 million prey pieces with a Volume of 28 l, a nitrogen content of 280 g, and an energy content of 6.2×104kcal, as well as 155 l honey-dew with a sugar content of 41 kg, a nitrogen content of 100 g, and an energy content of 16.4×104kcal. In the years of an outbreak of Tortrix viridana L. the annual amount of prey was not considerably higher than during the time of latency of this insect. About one third of the prey volume was brought into the nest in the crop. Only 0.2% of the annual amount of crop liquid consisted of bleeding sap, which is collected in early spring. The annual input from nest territory is estimated at 81 kcal/m2(23 kcal/m2from prey, 58 kcal/m2from honey-dew).
authors.affiliation: Institut für Angewandte Zoologie der Universität, Würzburg, Deutschland.
authors.forename: Klaus
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Horstmann