I have come across queen garden ants (Lasius niger) for a week. The first one, a wingless one wandering on the garden checking every little crack on the cement eager to start digging her nest. She was quick and the light conditions weren't ideal, so, reluctantly, I moved her to a white bowl for a portrait (above). Yesterday, queens and males were emerging en masses from nests on the side of the street pavements in the afternoon, ready to start their nuptial flights.
The males are similar in size to workers, the queens, double their size and with a much larger abdomen.
 I even got a mating pair, with the female dragging the male about and both flying away:
The queen ants will usually mate once in this flight and then land and dig their nests and live underground the rest of their long lives, the males will die shortly after. I say the queens, but I should have said the lucky queens. Most of them will actually die before they hit the ground again, eaten by swifts, swallows, gulls or sparrows. Others will contribute to a spider bonanza. Hundreds of aphids and some ants could be seen yesterday and today covering the webs of the missing sector spider (Zygiella x-notata) on railings. One queen wandered on my conservatory wall and fell on the disorganised cobweb of a Steatoda bipunctata spider, who quickly approached the ant (maybe biting it?) and retreated to the corner of its web. A few minutes later the queen had stopped struggling, and the spider came out for his dinner.