The ants are definitely fucking if you see more than 2 of them.
They may be termites or flying ants. The difference is that flying ants have a cinched waist (theyre segmented).Ok here's a clearer pic, it does seem to have the cinched waist. So flying ants = carpenter ants?
At least for termites, they escape their home looking for another shelter to take over, so they seek sunlight and try flying out, but die quickly (within like 5 mins). So maybe thats what youre seeing?
Not a termite, thank goodness. As for flying/carpenter I do not know. I also recently moved to a condo so Im curious to see what to do, lol
I'm not spotting any carpenter belts or tools so I think you're alright.
Don't relax. Carpenter ants are worse then termites. They do way more damage and are harder to get rid of.
Are they building stuff or transforming into hideous monstrosities when they're not dying?They're actually dying and then coming back three days later.
They're actually dying and then coming back three days later.
I don't see tiny hammers or hard hats...The worst part about building the hive is the lack of OSHA compliance.
Can't believe we are examing ants waists in this threadI don't know if TC has carpenter ants but I just found a carpenter square
Looks like a carpenter ant. Winged ants are reproductives with the females being larger and males being smaller, all ants without wings are female. Carpenter ants are primary WDOs, meaning they will attack sound wood. They dont eat it like a termite, they mine it. If you see winged ones, there is a colony nearby, and they are looking for love. As soon as they mate, they male dies, and the female will fly off to start a new colony. It takes roughly 7 years for a female to grow wings, so seeing reproductives usually means the colony is established. This does not mean you have an infestation, it could have flown in. Tell tale signs of an infestation would be several worker ants and seeing piles of frass (sawdust)thanks for the info, yeah i am in the PNW. Seems like I am only seeing the flying ones, and no worker ants or sawdust like you said. Based on the fact they were coming in under my front door last year, I am gonna hope they're just coming in from outside again >_> weird they are under my oven though
Im only familiar with the carpenter ant species of the Pacific Northwest, if this is elsewhere, my info may not be 100% accurate.
wait wtf these ants live 7+ years? thats crazy theyre so little
I think he means it takes about 7 years for a colony to grow/mature to the point it starts producing breeding ants (males and new queens). During that time there's going to be multiple generations of worker ants who live and die to get it to that point (so if there's a nest in your house producing winged/breeding ants, there's probably a lot of damage done already)
A queen who mates and starts a successful colony can live quite a lot longer (like 20-30 years)
Yes, exactly. Thank you! Are you in pest control too?