You may find a lot of different kinds of ants in your home. Inside a building, ants can set up a colony in wall voids, behind baseboards, and even in hollow doors. Many times they are temporary as they search for food.
Life Cycle
- One or more queens produce eggs;
- Eggs each after a few days into small larvae;
- The larvae spin a cocoon in a few weeks to change from the larval form to an adult;
- Adults emerge from the cocoons
- When a colony is several years old, some new adults will b swarmers that fly away to establish a new colony.
Habits.
Ants usually come into buildings to find food and they do like human food. Some prefer fatty food and others like sweets. When a worker ant finds a source of food they go back to the colony, leaving chemical trail for the other ants to follow. They do act fast so you would soon fina a large number of ants swarming a food source.
Pavement ant
Pavement ant are brown to black and grow up to 3 mm. These ants often enter houses looking for food an a great number of them may make an appearance in a kitchen or patio. Outdoor they nest under stones, concrete slabs and at the edges of pavement. Inside they prefer crevices in woodwork and masonry.
Prevention
- keep food in sealed containers that are kept clean on the outside.
- Keep fruit in the refrigerator
- Don’t leave dirty dishes out
- Clean up grease and spills
- Rinse out empty soft drink containers
- Caul cracks and crevices, around pipes or wires that enter the house, as well as around windows and doors
Control
Apply sprays to cracks and crevices for temporary control of foreign ants. Cleaning with soapy water will remove the ant trails and will temporarily stop foraging ants.
Use toxic baits for long-term control. The bait is slow acting so that there is time for the bait to get back to the colony and share it with the other ants, thus destroying the colony
A perimeter treatment with residual sprays can be used to keep foraging ants from entering the building.
