Use the picture to visually identify the ants: carpenter ants are fairly large and are typically black or dark brown in color, but may also have some light red parts. Interestingly, they don’t eat the wood, but they do make tunnels in it to establish connections between the different sections of the nest.
Their favorite food comes from the excretions of plant lice, such as aphids, called honeydew. Their nest can become fairly large with up to 50,000 workers in large colonies, but only one queen. These nocturnal insects can travel long distances from their nest looking for food up to 300 feet away from the colony.
Carpenter ants get their name from their nesting habit, which is living in water damaged, and decaying wood. In nature, they live in the hollows of live and dead trees or tree stumps. On your property, they may find a home in wall voids, insulation, hollow doors and any other wooden structures with excess moisture.
Some other signs that indicate you have a carpenter ant infestation are:
- Wood shavings or sawdust-like shavings on the floor, sometimes seen with dead ants.
- Swarming winged ants
- Presence of live ants foraging for food
- A rustling sound heard inside the wooden structures
As a Home Protection Plan customer, if you’re not satisfied with our pest control service, we will service your home at no additional cost until your issue is solved or receive your money back from your last scheduled service.
Carpenter ants just live inside the wood, unlike termites that also eat it. This makes carpenter ants less of a danger to your home’s structural integrity.
However, when a population of carpenter ants is left untreated, the colony will grow and spread, taking over more resources and causing serious damage. It’s better to contact a pest control professional at the first signs of an infestation.
Contact us online or give us a call at (410) 653-2121 to schedule pest control in the Baltimore area.
Do these ants seem different than the ants you found in your home or commercial building? Take a look at our Ants Page to see some of the other ant varieties included in our pest control services throughout Maryland.
