Carpenter Ants, know your enemy

Carpenter ants are large ants that inhabit numerous areas worldwide. They love to construct their nests or colonies from dead, damp wood. In spite of this, unlike common belief, they do not eat wood like termites do.

They use wood to construct their nests and also tunnel through it in their hunt for fresh sources of nourishment. It is proven by heaps of frass, that is the waste that the carpenter ants have chewed from damp. dead wood.

There are actually over 1000 varieties of these big, usually black ants, which are part of the genus Camponotus. Carpentes reside in colonies with nests both indoors and outdoors in moist, decaying or hollow wood. They prefer to travel in this decaying wood by chiseling away galleries or walkways in wood length-ways up the grain to be able to build passageways from one area of the colony to a different section.

The components of a house which are most probably to be appealing to carpenters are floor joists, window frames and rafters in the roof. The truth is, anyplace what your location is prone to have a challenge with water entry. Decks and porches are frequently at an increased risk.

A fascinating thing relating to carpenters is the fact that a few varieties make inhabitants which can explode to be able to annihilate invaders. These types of so-called exploding ants can be found generally in South East Asia where you will discover a minimum of nine types that may cause their bodies to explode, as a consequence committing suicide.

These kinds of ants possess an enormous abdomen which supplies a form of glue which can be shot from the head onto invaders. The exploding ant dies, however all of the attackers ensnared by this mesh of glue are glued-up too.

Check Out: Is Homemade Carpenter Ant Killer Effective

Carpenter Ant Appearance

How can you tell whether or not you have carpenter ants? Well, the easiest way of identifying carpenters from various other ants is by taking a look at their waists. A carpenter possesses a single node or hump and their thorax or upper body is well-rounded and smooth. Other related ants possess more than one node or perhaps a rough or two-sectioned back.
If you are looking at flying ants, then the difference between carpenter ants and termites, with which they are often mixed up, is that carpenter ants have darker-colored bodies, narrow waists, elbowed or bent antennae and, if they have them, the rear wings are smaller than the front wings.
An additional feature is the fact that carpenters are very willing to emerge and be observed, while termites are light-shy, even though carpenter ants are more active between dusk and mid-night and reproductive termites will take to the air in the daytime.
Carpenter ants consume proteins and sugars along the lines of other insects, living or dead and also spilled honey or sugar. This honey may also be removed from aphids or greenfly, typically called honeydew. Therefore, if you need to track down carpenter worker ants back to their nest or nests, you should put down something such as honey and observe the ants take the food back into their nests. This is exactly the starting point in eradicating colonies of carpenter ants.

Now that you know about carpenter ants, here is our post on How to Get Rid of Carpenter Ants