Carpenter Ants In Boise Idaho
Carpenter ants are one of the most common household pests. They look like typical black ants, but they have a very distinct shape and size that sets them apart from other ants. Carpenter ant infestations can cause significant structural damage to homes. If you see any signs of carpenter ants in your home, call an exterminator right away! The best way to avoid an infestation is to keep the exterior of your house free of debris and plant life. This will discourage carpenter ants from nesting on your property.
However, they’re also very easy to get rid of if you know what you’re doing. This blog post will help educate readers on the basics of carpenter ants, how to identify them, and ways in which you can remove them from your home or property.
What do carpenter ants look like?
Carpenter ants are typically black, with metatarsal segments that are dark brown. The head of the carpenter ant is very slender and triangular. Carpenter ants also have antennae that are not elbowed near the joints where they connect to the head. A carpenter ant can be identified by its three body segments, with the abdomen being composed of six parts. The area behind the thorax is called the scutellum. Underneath these two regions are two pairs of wings that are membranous on both sides.
Carpenter ants are found in large colonies made up of many individual worker ants.
The swarmer ants are dark brown to blackish, with wings around 2 mm long or less. Males have much larger eyes than females and antennae that are very large compared to their body size. Males also appear to have three body segments as normal worker ants but lack any wings or scutellum. Antennae are long and threadlike, with ten visible segments. Males have a bent or curved waist that is between the thorax and abdomen. Females have a straight waist.
The workers’ ants are the most readily observable, making up most of the colony’s workforce. Male carpenter ant nests will be almost entirely of males, while females live in colonies with both queens and males. The worker ants are typically black or dark brown, depending on what material they were born to. When born, worker ants are sterile females that forage for food and maintain the colony.
Worker ants have two sets of scissor-like jaws that are called mandibles. In addition, the head of a worker ant has large eyes, which aid in navigation. Although there is no intelligence to be found within the workers, they can communicate using their antennae.
Where do carpenter ants live?
Carpenter ants are found throughout North America, Europe, and South Africa, living in their nests inside hardwood trees. Their nests can be rather large, consisting of many tunnels made from wood chewed out of trees. In these dens, ants build galleries with long tubes of sawdust, wood chips, and saliva. These galleries are separate cells that protect the ant’s eggs. Nests are usually located next to a water source or in moist areas to prevent the nest from drying out, although some species build nests that can be found at higher altitudes or even underground. Carpenter ants cannot survive in dry areas without moisture because they depend on the humidity of their environment.
They are foraging insects, looking for food outside their nest. This means that they are usually seen in or around buildings. Because carpenter ants look similar to termites, the presence of these pests should be confirmed before any action is taken. The best way to do this is by identifying whether their wings are present and intact. Carpenter ants have one node on their petiole, while termites do not.
Carpenter Ants Diet and Habitat
Carpenter ants make nests out of their habitat. These nests are formed in rotting wood, tree branches, and forest litter, where they can easily conceal themselves from predators.
They are most active during Spring and Summer due to the availability of food sources that may be used for nesting purposes. Carpenter ants do not hibernate in the winter month; they will become less active as the weather gets colder. Some nests may also die out and to a warmer, more suitable building area during this time.
Furthermore, carpenter ants will look for food outside their nesting site, and once they find it, they will begin their journey home. They use pheromones to communicate with each other during this process; the stronger substantial concentration of pheromones on their way back, the more likely they will make a mistake and lose their way.
Carpenter ants are omnivorous insects. Most notably, they eat dead animals (fruits, vegetables of all kinds, meats, all sorts of measuring fish), bread, and milk products in the open air. They will also eat honeydew produced by aphids and other insects.
These ants feed on almost anything available to them, and they will bore into wood and feed on sugar-rich cellulose, and what they can’t eat immediately, they carry with them and store in their nest.
The carpenter ant feeds on oranges and oatmeal in the early spring when the weather is warmer and t, the development of eggs and larvae occurs. Then later in the summer, they forage for sweets to feed their larvae to produce more eggs. Finally, in autumn, ants go into a frantic search, hoping for food to store underground in trees and logs for the winter. Mostly they bring bits of twigs, needles, and other debris back to their nests.
Signs of a Carpenter Ant Infestation
If you’re starting to see carpenter ants wandering around your home, then there is a good chance that you might be seeing one (or more) of these signs of infestation.
#1 – Sawdust in Your Home
Carpenter ants don’t just cause structural damage to the wood in your home; they also create a good amount of sawdust. When they bore into wood to create their nests, they leave behind sawdust that looks very much like regular greyish-black dirt or sand. If you can see sawdust in your home, then there is a good chance that an infestation has already started.
#2 – Dead Insects in Your Home
Ants are omnivores, which means that they will eat anything (insects included) to survive. So, to get the protein and nutrients they need, you may start noticing that they kill insects in your home. This will be the case in an infestation because when ants run out of their food (which happens more frequently than you might think), they need to turn to other things like live insects to survive.
#3 – Wood Damage in Your Home
Carpenter ants are attracted to the wood in your home, which is why they can cause so much damage when they infest it. They eat through the wooden beams and foundation of your home, leaving behind weak spots that might not be noticeable at first. However, if you see small cracks or gaps in the walls of your home, then there may be structural damage, which means that you need to act fast before it worsens.
#4 – Odors
Another sign of an infestation is bad odors like ammonia or rotting meat. This is because ants are trying to feed themselves and their nest-mates, they will often eat things like dead insects, animal feces (like mice), leaves, and other things that leave behind bad smells. So if you notice a intense smell in your house, then there is a good chance that the ants are coming from somewhere like an animal’s lair or old leaves that can’t decompose.
#5 – Ants in Your Food
If you see ants crawling around in your food, it’s a good chance that you need to look at the kitchen more closely. You might also start seeing ants in or around your trash can area because they are attracted to things like rotting meat and decomposing/old food items. Finally, if you notice an ant trail going towards your pantry, kitchen cabinets, or other areas of your home where food is stored, then you have a big problem on your hands.
There are many more signs of infestation with carpenter ants, but these are the most common ones that most people notice at first. If you see even one of these symptoms, then the chances are good that an infestation already began somewhere (like the walls or foundation of your home). If you don’t take care of the problem before it gets worse, they will only keep coming back to try and eat your home for as long as they can.
You can prevent carpenter ants from infesting your home with an extermination service like Pestcom.
