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August 2nd, 2010 by Owen Jones

There are over 1,000 species of carpenter ants. The majority of of them are large, between a quarter of an inch and an inch long, and black, although there are red ones as well. There are even a few sorts in South East Asia which will explode if threatened, squirting 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 eat their way up the middle through its length. However, this is a popular myth, unlike termites, carpenters do not eat wood, they gnaw their way through it to get somewhere. They spit the gnawed wood out. This is called frass and it can often be seen in piles like sawdust. It is a good indication that carpenters are busy in or around your house.

Carpenter ants like to travel through the length of damp or rotten dead timber in much the same way 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, in particular anything sweet and sugary. Therefore, cleanliness is an important aspect of clearing carpenters out of your home.

These ants will walk as fae as a hundred yards while foraging, but they like to be near a recurring source of food. A feature of carpenter ant colonies is that they may build satellite nests away from their main colony. This is often why they enter 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 – particularly if you kill large numbers of them. This may seem odd, but the reason is that the colony will miss these workers and so the queen will increase her production of eggs to compensate it. If she over compensates, you are in a worse position that you were before spraying.

The only way to wipe out a nest of carpenter ants is to destroy the queen and the whole colony with poison. This is not difficult although it does take a bit of investigative work. Carpenters are most active between twilight 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 a number of nests in their colony. If you need light, wrap red cellophane over a normal flashlight, because ants can not perceive red light. When you have found their nests, put poison down outside each nest as directed 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 author of this article writes on quite a few topics, but is currently involved 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.