Carpenter Ant Prevention-Early Signs

While often considered a spring and summer pest, carpenter ants can start showing up as early as mid to late January in some parts of the country. With just a couple of consecutive sunny days temperatures can warm up enough to create some activity.

Such an early appearance of carpenter ants is usually sporadic. You will not necessarily see constant activity but rather see a few on one day and a few on another. However, just because they appear to go away for a while doesn't mean that they are gone but rather that they are just not currently visible. During such periods when not active and visible they generally are tending to their nest. This is actually like humans-when it is sunny and dry you may paint the outside of your house and when it is cold and rainy, you may paint an interior room. Such non-visible activities may include making sure that the colonies pupa are stored well where they will continue to grow and be ready to help the colony eventually damage your home!

Consistent visual evidence of carpenter ants won't start to occur until the average daily temperatures begin to rise above 45 to 50 degrees. Remember, just because you might not see them for a while does not mean that they are not still there and causing damage. Therefore, take the gift of having seen some as a good early sign and opportunity to address problem properly.

Let's back up for a moment and look at some causes as to why some carpenter ant activity previously unseen may suddenly be visible. It is important to realize that the odds are that at the time of first seeing them the ants usually have been there for at least a year or more. Sometimes yard work in winter or early spring can be the catalyst for causing the appearance. While removal of branches and foliage that contacts the structure is an integral part of IPM (Integrated Pest Management), doing it at the wrong time can exaggerate the problem.

Branch removal done in winter or very early spring can confuse the colony and cause branching out of a sub colony. If they had been relying on the contacting branches as a pathway, the ants will not have access to their previous route to get outside. Because of this, they can potentially spread to other areas in the structure looking for other perimeter openings for exterior access. This really acts as a double-edged sword; it is positive because it might alert you to a colony infestation that you were otherwise unaware of; it is a negative in the sense that the problem now may be spreading and on route to getting worse unless fast action is taken.

Strongly consider avoiding kneejerk attempts to perform your own pest control without getting an inspection by a professional or you could make problem worst. With any reputable pest control company, a quick inspection should not cost you anything and you can avoid making problem worse.

Next, realize that carpenter ants are a normal, consistent part of the environment in many parts of country. Don't always assume you have problem if you see one in yard (as opposed to at your foundation or inside) as that might be normal and expected for the environment surrounding your structure. As with many creatures they are consistent; you will see then in the same area over and over again. Rather than rushing to the hardware store or your cabinet and spraying the first chemical you can find, again consider a quick call a professional to make the determination. Applying treatments when not needed is something to be avoided and it most usually is done as a result of either misdiagnosis or lack of familiarity with the cause of the problem. Again, access the benefit of having a pro out to investigate the problem.

Since a carpenter ant infestation almost always start as a shoot off from another larger, establish colony, they likely will be travelling outside on a daily basis. The purpose of the travel is to communicate with that original colony and to forage for food source (commonly other insects.) Given that you can count on this behavior, pest control providers often are able to use this information to limit treatment to the exterior perimeter of structure and avoid interior treatment.

Carpenter ants are typically territorial with smaller nest colony populations than other common types of ants such as odorous house ants. This small colony can still cause huge amounts of damage, however. They will forage up to 100 yards away from their nest and protect that territory from other "non-related" colonies (their colony of original origin excluded). This means that very likely only one related colony is occupying the structure (even if that specific "extended family" has multiple nests.)

If a nest is only partially killed, for which there is no consistent way of verifying, it will become virtually non-visible and won't show back up again until the colony has regenerated itself. It can take months to tell for certain whether a problem is fully eradicated. For this reason, opting for continued periodic service treatment is much wiser plan of attack than a one-time treatment. The goal of carpenter ant control should always be to increase the likelihood of a more through colony kill and then start practicing preventative integrated pest management practices.