There are over 1,000 species of carpenter ants. Most of them are large, between a quarter of an inch and an inch long, and black, although there are red ones too. There are even a few species in South East Asia which will explode if threatened, ejecting a sticky substance out through their heads which immobilizes the attackers. The exploding carpenter ant dies.

Carpenter ants are thought to do a lot of damage to timber, as they gnaw their way up the middle through its length. However, this is a popular myth, unlike termites, carpenters do not eat wood, they chew their way through it to get somewhere. They spit the gnawed wood out. This is called frass and it can often be seen in heaps like sawdust. It is a good sign that carpenters are active in or around your home.

Carpenter ants like to travel through the length of damp or rotten dead timber in much the same manner as termites do although they do not consume the timber. Carpenters feed on dead insects, dead animals and honeydew from aphids and scale insects outside the home, but if they come inside your home they will be looking for dropped or uncovered food, especially anything sweet and sugary. Therefore, hygiene is an important factor in clearing carpenters out of your home.

These ants will walk up to a hundred yards while looking for food, but they like to be close a recurring supply of food. A characteristic of carpenter ant colonies is that they may construct satellite nests away from their main colony. This is often why they go into a home.

If they regularly find spilled food in the kitchen, they may make a nest in the wall to take advantage of it, particularly if the window or door frame is a bit decayed. Inside the home, they will probably nest in a cavity wall, outside the home they prefer to construct nests in decaying tree stumps.

It is no good spraying carpenter ants with insecticide if you want to get rid of them – especially if you kill large numbers of them. This may sound odd, but the reason is that the nest will miss these workers and so the queen will increase her production of eggs to counteract it. If she over compensates, you are in a worse situation that you were before spraying.

The only way to destroy a nest of carpenter ants is to destroy the queen and the entire colony with poison. This is not difficult although it does take a bit of investigative work. Carpenters are most active between dusk and midnight, so put out honey on glass or sticky tape where they are active and follow them when they take it home.

Do not forget, they may have several nests in their colony. If you have to have light, wrap red cellophane over a normal torch, because ants can not see red light. When you have found their nests, put poison down outside each nest as indicated on the label. Do this for several days in a row until you do not see anymore carpenter ants. If you are still getting them, you have missed a nest.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece writes on many subjects, but is at present concerned with Getting Rid Of Carpenter Ants. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Killing Carpenter Ants.

Tags: animals, ants, biology, Gardening, home improvement, Home Repairs, insects, Landscaping, other, outdoors, pests, pets, science, uncategorised

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