The Ant Uprising

Each spring and into the summer, ants appear inside homes and emerge to establish arenas. Spring is a critical time for ants to meet the demands of their colonies, and ants making their way into homes to find food causes panic for many homeowners.

Worker Ants:

Worker ants emerge in the springtime to establish their structures outside on plants like rose bushes and trees where aphids and scales may be feeding. As humidity, rainfall, temperature, and wind change, the location and size of these arenas will change. These ants emerge in the spring due to decreasing respiration and storing energy in fat bodies during the winter months. Worker ants can feed on both solids and liquids. Adult worker ants only feed on liquid foods that contain honeydew, a mixture of glucose and fructose, and amino acids while solid food such as caterpillars and other prey insects are fed to larvae.

Wood-Damaging Ants:

This specific type of ant causes damage to structures. These ants may include carpenter ants, velvety tree ants, and moist or cornfield ants. Carpenter ant trails will space ants at 1-meter intervals during the day and 1-centimater intervals at night and will build trails through lawns by cutting blades of grass and removing pebbles and other debris. These black or reddish-black ants will mine wood for nests (but will not digest wood). These colonies require foraging activity in the spring which will later switch to swarming activity later in the season.

Nuisance Ants:

Most of these ants are polygenic, meaning they have more than one queen. Pavement ants and odorous house ants are the most common. They can move in clusters varying from three to six ants wide and belong to colonies with numerous subnets containing a queen, worker, and brood ants. These colonies will most likely be constructed in a single yard around debris, objects, or yard ornaments. Nuisance ants do not cause damage to structures at all but give off a putrid smell once in structures. Although nests occur outside, temperature changes can draw the ants inside in which they’ll immediately attracted towards moist areas like plumbing.

Asian Needle Ants:

The Asian Needle Ant has recently been put on the watch list in the United States as the species is highly invasive originating from China. These ants usually nest around homes and businesses and their presence rarely goes unnoticed as their stings are painful and venomous. The pest control industry has prepared for battles as these small critters as they can have long-term effects on both ecosystems and health issues.