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Ants are often considered as the second most socializing insects, next to honey bees. The colony size may differ from one species to another. Some ant colonies consist of a few dozen members, while other colonies have more than a million. Each colony of ants can have one or more leading queen ants along with sterile female workers and sexually active male ants. Out of these, the queen and male ants bear wings. For a better understanding about ants with wings (also called swarmers), let's discuss about each of the ant classes in a colony.

Different species of ants may differ in size classes of their workers. Many ant species including pharaoh ants, are monomorphic. This means they only have one size. Big-headed ants are dimorphic have two sizes. Ants that have several different sizes are polymorphic including carpenter ants and fire ants. Workers in monomorphic ant colonies are given their tasks by age. They perform all duties in the nest at different phases of their lives.

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Workers are female ants that cannon reproduce. These are the majority of the ants inside a colony. Of these very few actually venture outside of the colony looking for food. This means that as the number of ants actually seen outside of the nest is only 5% of the colony. These are typically the older workers. The remaining workers aer younger in age and specialize in food relating, food storage, caring for the young stages of development (ie larvae) and nest mainenance.

Polymorphic ants divide their workers into three grounds. These are designated by the size of the ant. The smallest ants tend to the young. Medium ants gather food and do light nest maintenance. The largest form do heavy housekeeping chorse and nest defence. Dimorphic ants divide their workers into two types of workers: small and large. The smallest ants tend to the brood of larvae and the queen while the larger ants take care of nest maintenance, food, and nest defence.

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The queen is usually the largest individual in the colony. Her first and most important duty is to find a good nesting location. Many species of ants have several colonies (called satelite colonies). This includes pharaoh ants, little black ants, crazy ants and pavement ants. The queen mates only once but continues to produce offspring until she dies. In some species (prodominately the pharoah ant) feeding the larvae in a special way will cause her to become a queen.

Although the queen may copulate with several males during her brief mating period, she never mates again. She stores sperm in an internal pouch, the spermatheca, near the tip of her abdomen, where sperm remain immobile until she opens a valve that allows them to enter her reproductive tract to fertilize the eggs. The queen controls the sex of her offspring. Fertilized eggs produce females (either wingless workers seldom capable of reproduction, or reproductive virgin queens). Unfertilized eggs develop into winged males who do no work, and exist solely to fertilize a virgin queen. The queen produces myriads of workers by secreting a chemical that retards wing growth and ovary development in the female larvae. Virgin queens are produced only when there are sufficient workers to allow for the expansion of the colony.

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The first phase of colony development is the founding stage, beginning with mating, when winged males and virgin queens leave the nest in massive swarms called nuptial flights, searching out a mate from another colony. In colonies with large populations, like that of the fire ant Solenopsis, hundreds of thousands of young queens take to the air in less than an hour, but only one or two individuals will survive long enough to reproduce. Most are taken by predators such as birds, frogs, beetles, centipedes, spiders, or by defensive workers of other ant colonies. A similar fate awaits the male ants, none of which survive after mating. After mating, queen ants and male ants lose their wings. The queen scurries off in search of a site to start her new nest. If she survives, she digs a nest, lays eggs, and single-handedly raises her first brood that consists entirely of workers. In leafcutter ants, adults emerge 40–60 days after the eggs are laid. The young daughter ants feed, clean, and groom the queen ant. The workers enlarge the nest, excavate elaborate tunnel systems, and transport new eggs into special hatching chambers. Hatchling larvae are fed and cleaned, and pupated larvae in cocoons are protected until the young adults emerge to become workers themselves.