Larger yellow ants are one of my favorite insects. They have a pleasant lemon or citronella odor when crushed (of course the crushing is not pleasant to them!). Larger yellow ants are harmless and are never found foraging in kitchens. Larger yellow ants feed off the honeydew of root aphids. I was lucky enough to catch a small group if larger yellow ants caring for their aphids. They probably removed them from the plant roots and were caring for them over the winter. They were under a rock in my garden.
If you would like to learn more about larger yellow ants please see this article.
Larger yellow ants are pale tan or orange in color with very small eyes. Here the ants are picking up and moving their aphids after I disturbed them.
Ants with many aphids in a small pocket in the soil under a large rock.
You can see the aphids a bit better in this image. At fist I thought the ants were moving their larvae or pupae, but ant larvae and pupae do not have legs!
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