4 THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT CARPENTER ANTS

It is hard to miss the fact that you have carpenter ants when you see a line of them traveling across your floor to eat the pet food in your kitchen, but most homeowners aren’t lucky enough to have such a recognizable sign. In fact, most homeowners only see one or two ants crawling around the kitchen, in any given week. But if these wood-chewing pests are in your house, you’re going to want to recognize these ants when you see them.

4 things you need to know most about carpenter ants.

1. Just because you only see a couple ants a week doesn’t mean you have a small infestation. Carpenter ants can have a large colony in your walls and you may never see them. Why? Because they may be feeding on food that is outside of your home.
2. Those winged ants crawling on your windows and window sills are a sign that you have a mature nest in your walls. If it is your habit to vacuum flying ants up two or three times a week, we have bad news for you. When a nest matures, it produces winged reproductives and sends them out to form a new nest. That means there is a good chance you have more than one nest in your walls.
3. Laying food down isn’t a good test to see if you have carpenter ants. You can put a wide variety of food options on a plate in the middle of your floor and get no bites at all. This is because carpenter ant workers need to find that food, and they aren’t amazingly good at that job. What they ARE good at is collecting food once they find it. So, if a single ant finds a usable food source, it will lay down a pheromone scent as it travels back to the nest. This scent is picked up by other ants and, before you know it, the food is being swarmed with ants.
4. The real damage carpenter ants do isn’t direct damage. It would take a lot of carpenter ants to do significant damage to your home. But, when these insects hollow out wood, it can weaken structures and cause the frames inside your home to warp and bend.