Controlling Carpenter Ants
The most common pest in both the home and the garden in North America is the ant. Ants are gregarious insects that reproduce very quickly and are also incredibly hardy. Their main problem, as far as humans go, is probably visual, but some species of ant can wreak havoc on homes and gardens. One of these types of ant is the carpenter ant, an insect which is known for its love of making extensive homes within wooden frameworks. The resulting holes honeycomb the walls, making them both structurally unsound and unpleasant to look at.
Understanding carpenter ants
The key to an integrated pest control approach with carpenter ants is to understand how ants work. Large doses of chemicals for ants will solve the problem for the immediate future, but this is never a very good long term solution. The reason for this lies in the ant’s hegemonic structure. Simply, the ants you see are not the ones that reproduce; they are only gathering food. The ant that is making all the other ants is back in the nest. If you blanket spray the trail of ants you will have the satisfaction of seeing them perish, but rest assured they will be replaced, usually almost immediately, by freshly hatched pests.
The key to controlling carpenter ants, then, is in eliminating the colony, not the workers. We’ll get to that below, but first let’s see what you are looking for to determine if carpenter ants are your problem.
Carpenter ant clues
Well, the number one hint that you have ants will probably be a visual sighting, but carpenter ants aren’t as visible as their sugar loving cousins. This is because they stay within wood most of the time, so unless you are remodeling you may not see them yourself. Instead, you may find little inexplicable piles of sawdust under your house and sometimes even along the base of walls; these are “leftovers” that the workers have pushed out of their nest. You may also find that at night, when it is pretty quiet, you can hear the ants at work in your walls. Creepy, yes, but at least you know you have a problem.
Dealing with the ants
Let’s keep in mind here that we are looking at the least toxic ways in which you can deal with controlling pests, including the carpenter ant. As we’ve said a few times, blanket chemical treatments are usually harmful to more than just the pest in question, and also don’t pose a long term solution.
For carpenter ants, the long term solution lies in locating the nest or nests where the queen is hard at work replacing the workers lost in the field. First, you need to know where the nest is likely to be. There is probably a large “original” nest somewhere outside - a dead tree or a stump is an ideal location. You will also have one or more nests on the inside of your house. Find these nests by following the ants; ants don’t like to go on exploring adventures, and they almost always travel in lines. One line will be heading back to the nest; this line usually has ants carrying food. Follow the line until it disappears into a crack in your wall or in a stump. The nest will probably be located somewhere nearby.
Once the nest is found, it is pretty easy to destroy with the least toxic chemicals available; even a vacuum will work if you can reach the nest. Once destroyed, prevention is important to keep the carpenter ants from coming back.
When it comes to carpenter ants, you can use up a lot of time trying to located their nests. This is where a pest control company can come in handy; not only will they locate the nests and use an integrated approach to eliminate the pests, they can also identify the things around your house which attracted the ants in the first place. Using such a company means a lot less of your time and many times a permanently effective solution, by the least toxic road.
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