When Your Ant Comes To Visit
Mistaken Identity
Carpenter Ants should not be confused with termites. Termites are
white in colour and are smaller than a grain of rice. Carpenter
ants look like regular black ants, except a little bigger. Adult
carpenter ants grow to be as much as one-half inch long. Queens
are often twice that size.
If you get really intimate with a carpenter ant you will notice
that they have bent or "elbowed" antennae. They only have one
Node or bump on the joint between their thorax and abdomen (the
thorax is the middle section and the abdomen is the rear section),
and the thorax on some carpenter ants is burnt orange or chestnut
red in colour. They also have hairy abdomens.
You will never see a termite unless you break open a piece of
infested wood or a shelter tube (tunnels that termites use to get
from the soil, where they live, to the wood they are eating).
Carpenter ants, on the other hand, roam around looking for food
the same way ordinary ants do.
Termites eat wood. Carpenter ants do not. Instead, they burrow
into wood to make a nest and they push the wood and other debris
(called frass) out of their colonies. The inside of the infested
wood is spotlessly clean and consists of smooth galleries through
the wood.
Finding A Home
Most nests are outdoors in tree stumps, fence posts, and
unfortunately, sometimes in porches. But carpenter ants will also
nest indoors in rotten or damp wood or sound wood adjacent to a
source of moisture such as a sweaty pipe, near washing machines,
dishwashers or baseboards in damp areas. Although they normally
excavate their colonies, they sometimes live in hollow doors,
window frames, etc.
Carpenter ants are omnivorous meaning they eat all different types
of food. Outdoor they east plants, insects, (their favourite are
aphids), fruit, etc. Indoors they eat household foodstuff,
especially syrup, honey, sugar, meat fat and grease.
On their way back to the colony, they rarely take the same route
which can make it difficult to locate the nest. Even though the
colony may be indoors, most of the ants will go outdoors to feed.
This also reduces the likelihood of detection. To make matters
worse, the ants are more active at night than in the daytime and
some colonies go dormant during the winter. (The colony is most
active during the spring and summer.)
Coming Out of the Closet
In the summer months, swarms of winged carpenter ants (both male
and female) leave the colony. They mate on the fly, return to
earth and shed their wings. The female (queen) then finds a
suitable place to lay her eggs which hatch into larvae. The
larvae develop into adults in 2 to 10 months depending on the
temperature. These adults are workers and at this stage the
colony is only a queen plus 10 to 20 workers. The colony takes 3
to 6 years to develop during which time the queen lays eggs and
the workers care for the young. A queen has a life expectancy of
8 to 12 years while workers can live 4 or 5 years. When the
colony has developed, winged males and females form. They remain
in the colony over the winter and take flight the next summer to
begin the process again. A developed colony may contain thousands
of ants. Needless to say, the damage to wooden components can be
significant to make a home for this many ants.
Kissing Your Ants Goodbye
Locating the colony is necessary to get rid of the ants. This can
be tricky. Sawdust at entrances to the colony is one method.
Listening for the ants is another. At quiet times, a distinct dry
rustling sound can be heard from the colony (some specialists use
stethoscopes to listen for them). If you bang on the wood, it
disturbs them and the noise level from the colony will increase.
Locating the colony and eliminating it is best left to a pest
control specialist.
Your best defence against carpenter ants is elimination of damp
environments and rotted wood within the home. Storing firewood
adjacent to the house or in the basement is not wise. While
chemical treatment can kill the colony, they'll be back next year
if ideal conditions exist.
Return Home
This page hosted by
Get your own Free Home Page
