What is Carpenter Ants?

Carpenter ants are large black ants that will make their nests in walls, behind siding, in attic, insulation or trees. Although their size varies, typically they range from 1/4 to 1 inch. Carpenter ants prefer to build their nests in dead, damp wood and as oppose to what most people thinks, they don't eat wood. They simply tunnel through the wood leaving a residue of sawdust or excavate wood to build their homes in the cavities left behind

Carpenter ants are different from termites. They can nest anywhere and if they found their way into your house, be prepared for some serious structural damage they made to it. Carpenter ant swarms usually occur in the spring and if they do, then it is almost a sure sign that a colony is nesting somewhere inside the structure.

As stated above, carpenter ants don’t eat wood, but they are capable of damaging it by hollowing it for the purpose of nesting. Usually, they will nest in moist wood and that include rotting trees, boards and logs buried or lying on the ground, tree stumps and roots. Inside houses or building, they can nest in decayed wood, bathroom tiles, tubs, sink, attic beams, insulation, showers and dishwashers or hollow spaces such as wall voids, curtain rods and doors.

Carpenter ants will excavate galleries in wood and once they did it, you will find shredded fragments of wood ejected from these galleries though either cracks that preexist in the wood or slits made by the ants. If you inspect carefully, you will find that it contains no mud-like material which is similar to what termites did. These are typically dead ants and bits of insects which the carpenter ants have eaten and when you found more and more of these, it is quite clear that a carpenter nest is nearby the area. However, most of the times, you will not be able to discover as there will no external signs of damage as the excavated sawdust will be well kept hidden behind a wall or in some other concealed area.

As you already know by now, carpenter ants may nest in quite a number of different locations in the house or building and these locations can be either inside or outside the structure. Typically, there are two different types of nests carpenter ants will construct; they are the parent colonies and the satellite colonies. The differences between these two different nests are the parent colonies will contain an egg-laying queen, brood and 2000 or more worker ants when mature whereas a satellite colonies will only contains a larger number of worker ants and there will be no queen, eggs or young larvae.

The workers ants of the satellite colonies will move readily between their nest and the parent colony and as such, carpenter ants inside a home may have originated from the parent colony or from one or more satellite nests. As a simple illustration, it is possible that the carpenter ants may come from the parent nest which is located in a tree stump, woodpile or landscape timber outdoors, and as the same time, it is also possible that it comes from one or more satellite nests hidden behind a wall in the bathroom or kitchen.

When accessing the extent and potential damage made by the carpenter ants to a home, it is important to determine the total number of nests that are present within it. It is also important to take a look at the infestation and the possible duration. Checking out the nests created by carpenter ants might be a huge task as it is quite possible that there are no external and visual damages made. One of the ways to locate the hidden nests is to probe the wood using a screwdriver. Tap along baseboards and other wood surfaces with the blunt end of a screwdriver and at the same times; listen carefully for the hollow sound of damaged wood. Quite often, if a nest is nearby the probe area, you can hear a sound similar to the crinkling of cellophane; that sound is produced by the carpenter ants.

The damage made to the wood structures will vary and the blunt fact is that as long as a colony is present in a structure, a certain level of damage is already done.

So, what can you do about it? What is the next immediate task that you need to do to handle it?

This is something that we will discuss about in the near future post. How to get rid of the carpenter ants.