Carpenter ants are large ants that live in many parts of the world. They like to construct their nests or colonies from dead, damp wood. However, contrary to popular opinion, they do not eat wood as termites do.
They use wood to build their colonies and tunnel through it in their search for new sources of food. This is proved by piles of frass, which is the detritus that the carpenter ants have chewed 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 colonies both indoors and outdoors in moist, decaying or hollow timber. They like to travel through this rotting timber by chiselling out galleries or walkways in timber length-ways up the grain in order to provide passageways from one part of the nest to another.
The areas of a house that are most likely to be of interest to carpenter ants are floor joists, window frames and rafters in the roof. In fact, anywhere where you are liable to have a problem with water entry. Decks and porches are also obviously at risk.
An interesting fact about carpenter ants is that some species produce inhabitants that can explode in order to kill attackers. These so-called exploding ants are found mostly in South East Asia where there are at least nine kinds that can cause their bodies to explode, thereby committing suicide.
These ants have a massive abdomen which provides a type of glue which is fired out of the head onto invaders. The exploding ant dies, but all the attackers caught up in this web of glue are glued-up as well.
How do you know whether you have carpenter ants or not? Well, the best method of distinguishing carpenter ants from other ants is by observing their waists. A carpenter ant has only one node or hump and their thorax or upper body is well-rounded and smooth. Other similar ants have more than one node or an uneven or two-sectioned back.
If you are looking at flying ants, then the disparity between carpenter ants and termites, with which they are frequently mixed up, is that carpenter ants have darker-coloured 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 light-shy, even though carpenter ants are most active between dusk and mid-night 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 many subjects, but is at present concerned 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.