Get ready for thousands of flying ants to swarm into your garden.

Because now that summer appears to be here, #FlyingAntDay could happen at any time.

The what day?

Flying ant day is the day of the year when both queen ants miraculously sprout wings and take off - and hundreds of male ants ALSO sprout wings to follow here because they mate in midair.

Technically Flying Ant Day can cover four or five days depending on the weather.

It usually happens at the end of July, but the sudden heat of the weekend has meant a lot of flying ants have already been spotted - and where one goes, the rest tend to follow.

Many people are reporting they saw swarms of ants in parts of Dorset over the weekend - and there will be more to come.

Why do ants sprout wings?

A new queen ant needs to leave the colony where she is born to found a new one. She also needs to mate. So, she leaves her nest with a number of flying male worker ants.

According to the Royal Society of Biology, the large numbers of flying ants which appear in a short space of time increase the chance of reproduction, because there is a very high chance a queen will encounter a male from another nest.

Then, to check he's worthy. she flies away from him, performing acrobatics to test his abilities to catch her. When he does they mate in mid-air. This kills the male ant.

The Queen then lands to find somewhere to start a new colony. She loses her wings after just one day.

When is Flying Ant Day?

Usually, it happens at the end of July or the beginning of August. Ants only sprout wings when there is little chance of rain and the weather is nice and warm. But the RSB, who have been studying flying ant day for a few years, say they now believe it's not as predicatable as first thought.

Professor Adam Hart FRSB, from the University of Gloucestershire said: "With 2016 already proving to be a wet one, it will be interesting to see whether we get a repeat of 2012, when most of the flights were compressed into just a couple of days in July and August between the rain.

"Of course, if it clears up we may see a repeat of the beautiful ‘pulsing’ pattern of 2014, with regular flights every couple of weeks.”

When flying ant day does arrive, you can let the RSB know by tweeting them using #flyingantsurvey or emailing via their website here