Carpenter Ant Control: Go Colonize Someone Else’s Wood

There’s nothing worse than freeloader carpenter ants. Now, I know what you’re thinking: “The Carpenters were a soft rock band from the seventies. How bad can carpenter ants be?” You better believe it sisters and brothers, carpenter ants are bad. Not only do they roll in large posses, also known as colonies, but they snatch up your food and can potentially cause structural damage to your house. Plus, they’re totally subservient to their queen. It’s like, get a backbone and move out of your mom’s house!

What is it?

Carpenter ants are larger than your average ant, ranging somewhere from ¼ to 3/8 of an inch long and are generally dark brown or black, though some may have red or yellow coloration. Carpenter ants do all their heavy lifting at night, so keep that in mind if you’re planning on doing a little reconnaissance work to locate their nest. Their nests, which are referred to as galleries, may either be located inside or outside of the home, most commonly in moistened wood. These galleries are often clean and resemble a sandpaper-like quality. An easy way to detect the presence of a carpenter ant nest is if you notice a substance similar to sawdust, known as frass, in or around your house.

There are generally two different types of carpenter ant nests, parent colonies and satellite colonies. Parent colonies carry the egg-laying queen and somewhere around 2,000 worker ants, whereas satellite colonies only contain workers (non-union certified I might add). A common situation for many homes is that the parent colony will be established outside in a tree stump in the backyard, and the smaller satellite colonies will form inside the house, mainly to forage food.

While you can take steps to exterminate carpenter ant colonies on your own, a pest control expert will be able to rid you of your problem more efficiently, as they have the proper expertise and the tools. However, if you’re dealing with a small enough colony, you may be able to successfully rid yourself of it. For instance, if the nest is exposed, the use of a liquid or aerosol insecticide (such as bifenthrin or deltamethrin) could do the trick if applied directly to the nest. If you cannot locate the nest, you could try baiting the ants by combining an attractive food (sweets and meats primarily) with a slow-acting toxicant such as boric acid.

Still, these do not guarantee complete extermination, as partial extermination will lead the ants to build another gallery, which means burrowing more of your wood.

Who needs it?

If you’ve been noticing large colonies of black ants in or around the vicinity of your home then you should definitely consider pest control. This is especially true if you’ve spotted swarmers, which are winged carpenter ants and an indication that the colony in question has grown rather large.

Generally speaking, common nesting areas indoors are usually moist, hollow areas where water leakage is prone. These could include: wall voids behind dishwashers, bathtubs, sinks, leaky roofs, and poorly sealed windows and door frames. Common nesting areas outdoors could be tree stumps, hollow logs, fence posts, or stacks of firewood.

Benefits

Because carpenter ants are persistent creatures, do-it-yourself extermination can be an extremely tedious task as they will continually rebuild galleries if you don’t properly wipe them out. That’s why professional pest control is ideal for this situation and much more beneficial to you in the long run. They can much more easily determine where the nest is and perform tasks such as drilling small holes into your wall to penetrate the nest so as to more effectively apply insecticidal dust. Also, many products they use are more potent, and therefore more effective than the insecticides available to the public.

However, there are also some fairly easy ways to help prevent carpenter ant infestation in the first place. Try and make sure to minimize any leakage that may be present in the household, especially if it’s near any wood. It’s also a good idea to trim any tree branches that brush against the house, as tree limbs can serve as a convenient bridge for ants.