Feed: Need I worry About Carpenter Ants? - AggScore: 10.4

Need I worry About Carpenter Ants?

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Carpenter ants are big ants that live in many parts of the world. They like to build their nests or colonies from dead, damp timber. However, contrary to popular opinion, they do not feed on wood as termites do.They use timber to build their colonies and tunnel through it in their search for new sources of food. This is evidenced by piles of frass, which is the debris that the carpenter ants have hollowed out of typically damp. dead wood.There are over a thousand species of these large, typically black ants, which belong to the genus Camponotus. Carpenter ants live in colonies and have nests both indoors and outdoors in moist, decaying or hollow wood. They like to travel through this rotting timber by cutting out galleries or walkways in timber lengthways up the grain in order to provide passageways from one section of the nest to another.The parts of a house that are most likely to be of concern to carpenter ants are floor joists, window frames and rafters in the roof. In fact, anywhere where you are likely to have a problem with water ingress. Decks and porches are also obviously at risk.An interesting fact about carpenter ants is that some species produce members that can explode in order to eradicate invaders. These socalled exploding ants are found by and large in South East Asia where there are at least nine species that can cause their bodies to explode, thereby committing suicide.These ants have a huge abdomen which produces a type of glue which is shot out of the head onto invaders. The exploding ant dies, but all the invaders caught up in this mesh of glue are gluedup as well.How do you know whether you have carpenter ants or not Well, the best method of idetifying carpenter ants from other ants is by looking at their waists. A carpenter ant has only one node or hump and their thorax or upper body is wellrounded and smooth. Other similar ants have more than one node or an uneven or twotiered back.If you are looking at flying ants, then the disparity between carpenter ants and termites, with which they are often confused, is that carpenter ants have darkercoloured bodies, narrow waists, elbowed or bent antennae and, if they have them, the hind wings are smaller than the front wings.Another aspect is that carpenter ants are fairly happy to come out and be seen, whereas termites are lightshy, even though carpenter ants are most active between dusk and midnight and reproductive termites will take to the air during the day time.Carpenter ants eat protein and sugar such as other insects, living or dead and spilled honey or sugar. This honey can also be extracted from aphids or greenfly, which is called honeydew. Therefore, if you want to trace carpenter worker ants back to their nest or colonies, you have to lay down something like honey and watch the ants take the food back to their colonies. This is the first step in destroying colonies of carpenter ants.Owen Jones, the writer of this piece writes on quite a few subjects, but is currently involved with a targetblank hrefhttpkillingcarpenterants.comgettingridofcarpenterants.htmlGetting Rid Of Carpenter Antsa. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at a targetblank hrefhttpkillingcarpenterants.comKilling Carpenter Antsa.