 Once on the ground, the female loses her wings and searches for a suitable underground lair in which to found her colony.The success rate of these young queens is very low and only 2.5% will go on to establish a long-lived colony.Before leaving their parent colonies, winged females take a small section of fungus into their infrabucchal pouches to 'seed' the fungus gardens of incipient colonies, cutting and collecting the first few sections of leaf themselves.