The egg stage takes about 24 days, larval stage 21 days and pupal stage 21 days or about 66 days from egg to adult at 70 to 90 degrees F. Cool weather may lengthen this period up to 10 months. The colony does not produce swarmers until about three years later. A mature colony, after three to six years, has 2,000 to 4,000 individuals. During the first brood, larvae are fed entirely by a fluid secreted from the queen's mouth where she does not take food, but uses stored fat reserves and wing muscles for her nourishment. The few workers emerging from the first brood assume duties of the colony, collecting food, excavating galleries to enlarge the nest and tending the eggs, larvae and pupae of the second generation.
Workers regurgitate food for nourishment of the developing larvae and queen.
She has few duties except to lay eggs. Males formed are winged swarmers. In a mature colony, there is usually one queen with 200 to 400 winged individuals produced as swarmers. Workers cut galleries in the wood, expanding the nest size for the enlarging colony. Carpenter ants do not eat wood but excavate wood galleries to rear their young ants and carry aphids to plants, placing them on leaves for the production of honey dew.