Is Flying Ant Day real?

With the warmer weather comes music festivals, ice cream, days out and on occasion, flying ants!

Internet searches related to flying ants have been, well, flying to an annual peak - with some at least 2,000 times more popular in the space of a week - as people anticipate when the air will be filled with them. So much so, these insects even have a day named after them.

But what are flying ants, and is there really a date when they take over the skies in a single swarm? Here’s what we found out.

What are flying ants?

They’re really just the ants we see in our gardens, pavements, and green spaces - only these ones have wings. They take to the air when they are ready to reproduce, allowing queen ants to come into contact with other males. It’s known as a nuptial flight, and is how queens get ready to lay the eggs of their own new ant colonies.

If you’re wondering if flying ants can do you any harm - they can’t. They can be annoying if you walk through a swarm of them but they won’t attack humans, although they did cause a few tennis players at Wimbledon some unwanted distractions back in 2018, with women's number two seed Caroline Wozniacki complaining of insects in her hair during a match she eventually lost.

A swarm of flying ants, along with some ladybirds, led to a match between England and India at Lord's cricket ground being suspended in July. Flying ants are better news for the local bird population though - they make for very tasty snacks.

What is Flying Ant Day?

When flying ants swarm together to mate, it happens when the weather is particularly hot and humid in summer. This can happen at different times of July and August in different parts of the UK, depending on the temperatures in these places. It’s the weather conditions which makes the ants behave in this way, rather than any particular date. They like to travel in warm and calm conditions, and do this over several days where the weather is suitable, rather than just one.

If you’re wondering how big these swarms can be, flying ants have even been picked up on the radar used by the Met Office - which forecasts the weather - as the insects are a similar size to raindrops. Swarms a mile wide have been detected this way.

When is Flying Ant Day in 2025?

Flying Ant Day 2025 is not expected to be one specific day. Different sources have predicted different blocks of dates (and we know on Other Side of the Story about checking sources) but the majority seem to suggest dates in the last two weeks in July, and perhaps a little earlier. The days between 22 and 27 July also seem popular with the forecasters - but it's the ants which will decide in the end!

Is Flying Ant Day the right name for it?

Although the name does sound a bit like a sci-fi movie, there are some experts who think the name Flying Ant Day can be a little misleading. It may be more suitable to refer to it as a Flying Ant Season.

Other Side of the Story contacted the Royal Society of Biology (RSB) about a study they carried out over three years. Professor Adam Hart from the University of Gloucestershire ran an online survey, asking members of the public to record their flying ant sightings.

An RSB spokesperson told us: “One of the primary findings from the survey was that there is certainly not one flying ant day; the frequency in which the flying ants appear changes every year and is dependent on weather.”

They added: “One garden may see flying ants one day, with neighbours seeing them weeks or even months later.”

The RSB also said that what flying ants need, more than anything else, is a temperature above 13°C and wind speeds of less than 6.3m per second. They found that every day in the summer with a temperature above 25°C had flying ants present.

There is always more than one view on a subject and it isn't necessarily fake news when we see reports on Flying Ant Day, but it's always worth taking a deeper look at the news we read.

This article was published in July 2025

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