Contact: Eric Day, Manager, Insect Identification Laboratory
Size: Carpenter Ants (Camponotus pennsylvanicus) can vary in size, ranging from 3.5 mm to a very large 13 mm
Color: Their colour can vary from all black, a combination of black and red, or completely red or brown.
Description: Although they do not sting, their bites can be extremely painful, especially when injecting formic acid (workers only) into the wound.
Type Of Damage: The external damage caused by carpenter ants is usually limited to small openings or windows on the surface of wood. These openings are used to expel wood shavings and debris. Inside, the galleries follow softer wood with numerous connections. Carpenter ants usually attack wood with moisture damage and high amounts of fungus. Workers will travel up to 100 meters in search of foods such as honeydew, insects, sweets, eggs, meets and grease. Inside nests are usually located around a moistures leak, around the sink, toilet, dishwasher and roof. Outside nests are located in rotting fence posts, stumps, firewood, dead trees and poorly vented decks. In my experience, almost every home I have ever treated has had railways ties located within 30 meters of it.
Control: To help eliminate the chance or carpenter ants, ventilate decks, trim bushes away from your home, replace rotten/moist wood and remove all wood to soil contact.
Carpenter ants have a main nest usually in a living tree as well as up to a dozen sub-nests called buds. At Steve’s Pest Management we treat the cause and not just the symptoms. We initially place slow acting bait in areas frequented by the forager ants. This bait is picked up and distributed to the various buds. We then return approximately two weeks later to apply a residual insecticide which destroys the surviving foragers and forces the main nest and buds to feed o the stored food which is the stored insecticidal bait. Both the main nests and the satellite nests are destroyed to provide long lasting results.
