Economy Pest Control serves the Greater Boston area with high-quality termite and pest control.

 

Carpenter Ants

Carpenter ant carrying baitCarpenter ants are rather large, ranging in size from 3/8 inch to slightly over one inch in length. The most common specie in our area, the Pennsylvania Carpenter Ant (Camponotus pennsylvanicus), is primarily black in color. The workers have very large mandibles (mouthparts), with which they can inflict a mild bite. The worker carpenter ant pictured on the left is carrying a piece of yellow insecticidal bait back to her colony.

 

Carpenter Ant Biology

Carpenter ants, like all ants, are highly social insects with a well-developed system of division of labor. Worker ants constitute the bulk of an established colony. Their primary duties are to forage for food, feed the colony's young, and defend the colony from predators. In many cases, carpenter ants that you see inside of a home are actually foragers from a colony that is located somewhere outside.

In nature, carpenter ants nest outside in large pieces of wood such as trees, hollow logs, fence posts, firewood, and utility poles. Once in a while, they will also nest in hollow, non-wooden items such as PVC furniture, swingset frames, and so forth. They prefer wood that has been at least partially damaged by water or rot. The workers forage for food, often traveling hundreds of feet carrying a single morsel back to their nests. In fact, the carpenter ants that you see in your home may actually be living outside in a tree or a piece of firewood, and simply coming into your house for food.

Often, though, carpenter ants will establish nests in houses and other structures. In buildings, they tend to prefer warm, moist void areas such as roof soffits, wall voids in kitchens and bathrooms, and sill plates in basements or crawl spaces.

 

Significance of Carpenter Ants as Pests

Carpenter ants are important pests because they excavate galleries in wood. If left untreated, they can cause significant damage over a period of time. They are also important because in the course of their foraging, they come in contact with all manner of filth, with which they can contaminate human and pet foods when they forage inside homes.