About Carpenter Ants
A nest of carpenter ants can do serious damage to a home. These small pests often set up shop behind baseboards and bathtubs and keen listeners may even hear them as they munch away. If an infestation goes untreated, these tiny bugs may quickly turn into a nightmare. Does this Spark an idea?
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Identification
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Carpenter ants sport several features typical of ants: dark-colored bodies, narrow waists and bent antennae. Full-grown carpenter ants range from 3/8 to 1/2 inch in length, although some can be as small as 3/16 of an inch. But while there are over a thousand species of carpenter ants, all species share certain common features. The waist of a carpenter ant has only one node, called a petiole. In addition, the thorax of a carpenter ant has an evenly rounded upper surface.
Misconceptions
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Despite their mutual preference for wood, carpenter ants and termites are entirely different insects. Carpenter ants actually don't eat the wood at all; they actually prefer to feed on insects and occasionally honeydew. Carpenter ants simply remove the wood as they build their nesting site. The wooden home of a carpenter ant is laced with smooth, clean, almost sandpapered passageways. The nesting site of a termite, on the other hand, is laced with moist soil.
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Features
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Carpenter ants tend to make their home in moist, decaying or hollow wood. A parent colony can reach maturity in about 3 to 6 years, after which point winged queens and males leave the parent colony to mate. Carpenter ants are most active between sunrise and midnight and especially during spring and summer. Individual ants can travel as far as 100 yards from a nest in search of food, which may sometimes lead them indoors. Ants found indoors during the winter season, however, can be taken as a sign that a nest is located somewhere in the house.
Prevention/Solution
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Although not quite as destructive as an infestation of termites, carpenter ants can seriously damage the structure of a home over a period of several years. The nest has to be located, however, before any control methods can be applied. Carpenter ants are most commonly found wherever wood has been exposed to water: bathrooms, porch columns, window sills or behind the dishwasher. Once the nest has been discovered, insecticidal dust can be applied.
Warning
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Some carpenter ant nests are only satellite colonies, populated strictly by worker ants. These satellite colonies are offshoots of the parent colony, where the queen resides with her eggs and larvae. The parent colony may instead be located somewhere outdoors, perhaps in a rotting tree or fence post. Destroying this central parent colony may require professional pest control.
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Resources
- Photo Credit Image: West Oaks Pest Control
