Ants are one of the most common pests in the household. Ants are known to be social ants. That is why in our children’s tale, we usually regard them as helpful, strong, industrious, and responsible. To give you an overview, let us discuss the common features of ants that make them unique.

Perhaps the most common ants we see at home are the carpenter ants, the odorous house ants, the pavement ants, and the army ants. Carpenter ants are one of the most damaging species of ants because they excavate wood. It could be very detrimental to your walls and your ceilings when you are infested with these ants. 

These creatures love to establish their homes in crevices, dark places, and even the unused spaces in your house.

Ants live and hunt in colonies. Within each one, they have three classifications of ants, also known as their social castes in which every type of ant has its own role in the colony. The first one is the queen ant. This is the largest ant in a colony. And its main job is to reproduce hundreds of thousands of eggs in one lifetime. Unlike human queens, who can give orders, ant queens do not have the authority to command its helpers. They have an initiative of their own. Like the second type of ant known as the soldier ant. These are responsible for the defense of the whole colony. They fight to death especially when it means that their sacrifice will be saving their whole kin. The last type of ant in the colony is the worker ant, also known as the slave ants. This type of ants is responsible for nursing the young ants and scouting for food outside the colony. They are also responsible for carting the crumbs and food remains back to their colony. When they find a food source, they secrete a chemical called pheromones that indicate the presence of food in a particular area. This signals the other worker ants to get in action and help carry the food back to the colony.

Another interesting fact about ants is that they are considered as winter pests. It is not because they can survive the cold outdoors. But because of their need to infest homes during the cold weather. You can observe the dramatic increase of ant infestation in your home during the cold weather simply because they need the shelter, food, warmth, and security they require to survive. In cold winter months moisture and condensation is at an all time high, especially around concrete and slab foundations.  Humidity inside a home condensates at the coldest surface, and that is usually an outside wall.  

Which is why to get rid of these ant species, you need to consider these simple methods to help lessen if not eliminate the threat of ants inside your home. Do not spray any insecticides on the ants, unless it is labeled as a bait.  Use the social ant structure to our benefit.  If you feed an ant a bait, that ant will take directly to the colony.  JPM has several types of ant baits that are used to lure, feed and attach the ants.  

Contact us to remedy your small ant problem.  Txt or call us at 260-747-9772