[4] The colony of Camponotus herculeanus consists of one or several wingless females (queens), some fertile males, and three castes of sterile workers, known as majors, intermediates, and minors, in decreasing order of size.

It occupies a range of habitats including various types of conifer and hardwood forests, clearings, oak scrubland, disturbed areas, pastures and seashore grassland.

[1] Satellite colonies, linked to the original nest by underground tunnels, may develop nearby, often in warmer, drier locations.

Winged reproductives are produced in late summer and overwinter in the colony, emerging to fly in swarms on warm spring days.

[5] They tend aphids, and the larvae of the silvery blue butterfly (Glaucopsyche lygdamus), which often feeds on the lupine Lupinus bakeri.