Black Ants

[MacBaine]

Why is it that people are always saying "spiders are great because they eat other bugs in your house", yet we always get swarms of ants every year? Where are the goddamn spiders! And don't say I killed them all... I run and hide when I see one 🙁

 

[Eli]

Originally posted by: MacBaine
Why is it that people are always saying "spiders are great because they eat other bugs in your house", yet we always get swarms of ants every year? Where are the goddamn spiders! And don't say I killed them all... I run and hide when I see one 🙁

Most spiders don't find themselves in the position to eat ants since most ants don't fly. 😛

Ants are just as beneficial as spiders. They're the small janitors of our planet.

 

[eviltoon]

A flood in our basement revealed that we had a big nest of carpenter ants. We got professionals in to get rid of them. Carpenter ants are big, black and shiney. I mean they are very big. They are very aggressive with big mandibles. One interesting trait about carpenter ants is that you will never see them expose themselves in groups. They only leave the nest to gather food. They do this by following establish scent trails. And they space themselves apart. This way you never really think that you've got an infestation. You'll only ever see an occasional ant.

Carpenter ants do not eat wood for food. They will eat/chew wood to make pathways for their nest. Our little guys had the main nest under the floor. It was about 6' x 10'. They had chewed up huge amounts of 2x4 flooring beams. Branching out from the nest were tributaries to all four corners of the level. They ate through amazing amouts of wood. Luckily for us they did not eat through the wall studs. But the whole floor had to be redone. And this nest, as big as it was, went un-noticed for around 10 years. Why? Because they never travel in groups.

My advice, try and capture on of the little buggers and get it looked at by an outfit that knows ants.

 

[rh71]

Originally posted by: bunker
I post this in just about every bug thread 🙂

http://www.doityourselfpestcontrol.com

Bah... instead of instructing how to do-it-yourself... they try to sell things... bah! 😉

EDIT>>> I may just take that back... http://www.doyourownpestcontrol.com/info/pick-carp.htm

 

[amnesiac]

If they were outside, I would recommend one of those water-activated food traps. Kind of like a small metal disc with poisoned food in it.. you use 2 drops of water to activate, then set near the ants. I've never seen them swarm like I did around these traps. Within a couple hours you get to hose off the dead corpses of thousands of ants. Neat.

 

[bunker]

Originally posted by: rh71

Originally posted by: bunker
I post this in just about every bug thread 🙂

http://www.doityourselfpestcontrol.com

Bah... instead of instructing how to do-it-yourself... they try to sell things... bah! 😉

EDIT>>> I may just take that back... http://www.doyourownpestcontrol.com/info/pick-carp.htm

If you were to give them a call or email them, they'll tell ya what to do. The only reason I pimp them is because their office is right down the street from where I work and they've helped me out a ton with black widow spiders and fire ants.