My fire ants are breeding in my room! Help! One night this week, I peeked into my pet fire ant colony’s paludarium ant farm (the Selva de Fuego) and saw that the fire ants were launching their annual event: their nuptial flight! Each year the reproductives known as alates (young queens and males with wings) emerge from their ant nest to fly into the air and mate, in order to start new fire ant colonies of their own. The only problem is, my setup doesn’t have a cover, so the alates were flying out of their terrarium! Yikes! Watch how I deal with these winged escapees and discover with me the biology of the ant life cycle.