How do ants come to know that there is sugar spilt over?

Question

Ants and their mysterious behaviours

Answer 1

Ants are always out exploring, and two things happen here:



1. One ant will come across the sugar and will make a trail from there to the colony, soon hordes of ants will follow the trail to bring home the bacon.



2. As long as there is moisture, a nearby and will actually smell the sugar from a few yards away. It does have a smell too. Once he stumbles across it, the same will happen as described earlier.

Answer 2

One ant explores until finding it then leaves a chemical trail of pheremones as it marches home. The other little ants like the smell and follow it back to the sweet stuff.

Answer 3

I'm sure they can smell it, but they have so many scout ants who are constantly roaming the area and a lot of what they find is probably coincidence and just the shear fact that there are so many of them looking.

Answer 4

They must have awesome sent glands!

Answer 5

pheromones.