Carpenter Ants

The most common ant in the New England area which causes home owners to seek professional help is the Carpenter Ant-(Camponotus spp.)  They are the most noticeable of ants in and around the home being large and usually blackish, perhaps with some faintly grayish bands on the abdomen. Others may have some reddish or purplish coloration to the thorax (middle body part). Foraging workers have large mandibles which can give a powerful bite. They vary greatly in size from 1/4 inch to 3/4 of an inch long and winged reproductives can be from 3/4 to 1 inch long. These ants can cause serious damage to wood by excavating galleries, which somewhat resembles the work of termites but can be distinguished by their very clean sandpapered appearance. Sawdust or wood shavings known as frass found in and around the home, is usually an indication of a nest being excavated nearby, but very often it goes unnoticed being deposited inside a wall void. Carpenter ants DO NOT eat wood, but they hollow out areas for nesting. Moisture is a desirable condition for ant colonies, and wood which has been water damaged is a prime target for new nests, although perfectly dry and sound wood is also excavated. Galleries are cut with the wood grain and major workers then carry the developing larvae from the outside nest to the new satellite colonies in your home. These secondary nests can have up to 3,000 workers and Queens can live up to 20 years.  The most common areas in the home which are susceptible to invasion are under or behind sinks, toilets, dishwashers, windows that leak, sliders to porches and decks. Once inside the home, ants can quickly travel along water pipes and create satellite colonies in walls and upper levels going undetected until the nest reaches maturity. When this happens, not only is wood being destroyed, but on the first warm day in spring, the nest blossoms and hundreds of ants can come pouring out into your home, prompting a frantic phone call for HELP to someone like Security Pest Elimination!  Regularly seeing carpenter ants in your home is a good indication that there is a nest somewhere in the wood structure. Seeing winged swarmers is a definite sign of a nest because they do not forage for food but leave a mature nest to mate and start a new colony. Annual inspections and preventative treatments can detect and destroy these nests before they reach maturity and prevent infestations from spreading throughout the home. 

Pavement Ants 

Pavement ants (Teramorium Coespitum) typically are light to dark brown and sometimes have a reddish tint. Appendages are usually lighter than the rest of the body. The size of the ants within a colony will be very consistent averaging one-tenth of an inch, although the winged reproductives can be much larger. Pavement ants prefer sandy soil and usually live underground, but nests can also be found indoors in walls and under floors. Colonies commonly number around 500,000 and can be a tremendous nuisance, invading buildings throughout the year, foraging for food. All it takes is for one ant to find a piece of food, and in a short amount of time, the area will be covered by these ants. They accomplish this by laying down a pheromone trail from the food source to the colony. The ants underground in the colony simply follow the chemical (pheromone) trail back to the food source. They will feed on many things, but prefer greasy and or sweet foods. They can be a particular nuisance in and around homes with slab-on-grade construction and any basement dwellings. Since they live underground, entry into a home can be obtained through hairline cracks in the foundation or basement floor even in the middle of winter!