Green and Energy-Efficient Pest Control Solutions
Whether it’s your home or business, Pointe Pest Control has you covered with expert pest control solutions. We offer free quotes, consultations, and tailored plans to meet your unique needs. First-time customers can also enjoy an exclusive discount! Take the first step toward a pest-free environment today—schedule your free estimate now.
Ants: Persistent Colonizers
Ants are incredibly adaptable pests commonly found in our area. They can establish colonies in a variety of locations, both inside and outside your home. These pests create complex networks of tunnels and nests, making them difficult to eliminate without professional help.
Unlike termites, ants don’t consume wood, but they can still cause frustration as they invade your kitchen, pantry, and other areas in search of food. Ants are attracted to sugary and protein-rich foods, and their colonies can grow quickly. Swarming ants, which often appear in late spring or early summer, are a sign that the colony is expanding.
Our cold, snowy winters may slow their activity, but ants remain resilient, making it crucial to address infestations promptly. The exterminators at Pointe Pest Control have the tools and expertise to help eliminate ants and prevent them from returning.
Let us help you reclaim your home from ants with effective and comprehensive solutions.
Ant Control: Protect Your Home from Invaders
Ants don’t care if you live in Washington, Oregon, Montana, or Idaho. However, they are glad you’re around because your house provides everything they need to thrive. While you’re enjoying the comfort of your home, ants are busy building colonies and spreading into every corner. Let the experts at Pointe Pest Control rid your home of ant infestations.
Frequently Asked Questions About Ants
Although ants sometimes invade homes and become a real nuisance, they are fascinating creatures. It is important to understand how ants live and behave when trying to eliminate them from your home. Below are a few of the most frequently asked questions about ants, so you can gain a better understanding of the creatures.
Do Ants Need Oxygen?
Like all animals, ants need oxygen to survive. However, they have a relatively slow metabolism and so, they do not need as much oxygen as humans. If an ant was placed into a jar, for example, it would take a long time for it to use all of the oxygen in that relatively small space. Unlike humans, ants do not have lungs they use to inhale oxygen. Ants are equipped with openings on the sides of their bodies called spiracles. Oxygen enters an ant’s body using these openings, and carbon monoxide is expelled from them.
How Long Can Ants Hold Their Breath?
Many people think they can get rid of ants by drowning them or suffocating them. These methods for getting rid of ants are simply not effective because ants do not have lungs. When ants are caught in a flood, they do not necessarily hold their breath, but they do close their spiracles.
Although closing the spiracles means that water cannot flood their bodies, it also means they are not getting oxygen. Ants can survive for up to 24 hours doing this. Ants caught in a flood may appear to be dead, but they are not. Once the water dissipates and oxygen begins flowing through the spiracles again, the ant will start to resume their normal activities.
How Can Ants Carry 50x Their Own Weight?
According to the type of ant and estimates provided by different agencies, ants can carry anywhere between 10 and 50 times their own body weight. This is an amazing fact because ants are so tiny. However, it is that small size that actually helps them carry so much. Ants have larger cross-sectional areas in their muscles, which means their muscles are thicker than other animals so they can produce more force. The entire body of an ant is meant to carry more force, as well. According to different studies, some parts of their bodies can experience force more than 3,000 times their own body weight and survive it.
How Long Do Ants Live?
The length of an ant’s life depends on many things such as their species and the amount of food they have access to. The caste of an ant also depends on an ant’s timeline. Adult male ants die shortly after they mate with females. Worker ants are females that do not reproduce but maintain the colony. These ants can live for a few weeks to many months. Queen ants can live for several years and will spend that time laying eggs to add to the population of the colony.
What Time of Year are Ants Most Active?
Like all animals, ants need oxygen to survive. However, they have a relatively slow metabolism and so, they do not need as much oxygen as humans. If an ant was placed into a jar, for example, it would take a long time for it to use all of the oxygen in that relatively small space. Unlike humans, ants do not have lungs they use to inhale oxygen. Ants are equipped with openings on the sides of their bodies called spiracles. Oxygen enters an ant’s body using these openings, and carbon monoxide is expelled from them.
Can Having Ants in Your House Make You Sick?
Like many other types of insects, ants have been known to trigger a person’s allergies once they make their way inside a home. Ants can also irritate a person’s asthma symptoms, or cause asthma in people already dealing with respiratory illnesses. Ants also sometimes carry dangerous diseases such as E. Coli, streptococcus, shigella, and salmonella, although ants carrying these diseases are more commonly found outside of the United States in third world countries. Ants that do carry these diseases can contaminate the food within a household and if someone eats it, they may become sick.
Why Do Some Ants Have Wings?
Homeowners are often concerned to find ants flying around the home, usually in mid-spring. Nearly every species of ants have at least a few members of the colony that can fly. Typically, it is the queen and the drone, a male, that develop wings. They use them to fly so they can find a mate and start a new colony. As such, anyone that sees a flying ant around their home can assume the ants are trying to add to their population. Once ants have found a mate, they will set up a new colony and shed their wings.
How Do I Identify a Queen Ant?
Queen ants fly to find a mate and so, if you spot a flying ant, there is a good chance that it is a queen. In most cases, queen ants are larger than the workers that support them. Queen ants need a larger midsection to support the wings she will develop to start or add to a colony. The trunk of a queen ant is usually as wide as her head, and most queen ants have larger heads than other ants in the colony. It is important to identify the queen if you have an ant problem because the colony cannot survive without her.
Why Do Ants Fight Each Other?
Many people are surprised to learn that ants sometimes fight each other. These fights are quite fierce and sometimes do not end until the body of one ant is so damaged, the ant dies. Ants fight for many reasons. They may be protecting their nest or food storage from enemies, or they may fight to try to take over the nest and food source of other ants. Ants do not just fight different species of ants. They will also fight their own species when necessary.
Can Ants Talk to Each Other?
Most of the ants a person sees are female, which leads many people to think male ants do not exist. However, that is not true. Male ants, also called drones, do not perform any work in the colony. Their only job is to fertilize the queen ant so she can lay eggs and support the population in the nest. Male ants often do not even look like typical ants. They also live for a very short time, which is during the nuptial flight seasons.
How Do Ants Clean Themselves?
Ants are very clean animals. They have an oily saliva which they use to clean and oil their bodies by licking them. An ant’s antennae are very important, as they help the ant communicate and find food sources. As such, they must also be kept very clean. An ant cannot lick their antennas though, so they rely on a part of their body that is not visible to the human eye. An ant’s front legs are equipped with a structure that has a notch and spur, similar to a lobster’s claw. That structure is also covered with hair. An ant will drag their antenna through this structure, cleaning it as they do.
How Many Species of Ants are There in the U.S.?
Nearly 1,000 different species of ants reside in the United States. The exact number known to scientists is 812. That seems like a large number, particularly when compared with Canada, which only has 135 known species of ants. However, other countries such as Australia and Indonesia have many more species than the United States. The hotter the climate in a country, the more species of ants will call it home. Likewise, warmer states in the country will also have many more types of ant species than states with a colder climate.
What are the Smallest Ant Species?
It is difficult to identify the smallest ant species in the world because there are some species of ants that scientists have not yet identified. Still, the Carebara Atoma species are thought to be one of the world’s tiniest ants. Worker ants within this species do not grow much larger than one millimeter long, which is extremely small. In fact, it is about half of the size of sugar ants that commonly invade homes. Sugar ants can grow anywhere between two and fifteen millimeters in size.
What are Classes, Orders, Sub Families, etc.?
Terms such as phylum, order, suborder, family, genus, and species are sometimes used to identify different types of organisms, including ants. Of these terms, species is the most specific while phylum is the most inclusive. The terms are an internationally shared system of placing certain animals within certain groups. Species are grouped into genera, genera are grouped within families, and families are grouped into orders. Orders are then grouped into classes and classes are grouped into phylum. While these terms were historically used to identify different types of organisms, paleontologists today prefer to only use the term species and have largely stopped using the other terms.
My Home is Clean. Why are There Ants in My Home?
While it is easy to assume that ants only enter dirty homes, that is not always the case. You may have ants in your home when it is clean for many different reasons. If your neighbor has an ant problem, there is a chance they will migrate to look for more food. Ants also do not only enter homes to find a food source. They also need water. A leaking pipe or faucet may provide the sufficient amount of water they need to survive. Ants also enter homes looking for shelter, particularly when the outside climate is extremely hot or cold.
What are the Safest Ways to Remove Unwanted Ants?
Ants are interesting creatures, but that does not mean you want them in your home. The marketplace is flooded with do-it-yourself methods to get rid of ants, including baits, traps and pesticides. Unfortunately, many of these methods are ineffective and can actually pose a danger to your health, particularly if you are using pesticides. When you need to remove ants from your home, it is always best to call a professional pest control company that can safely eliminate the problem for you.
Which Ant Species can Sting or Bite Me?
All ants have the ability to bite humans, but few do unless they feel as though their nest is being threatened. Ants that bite include field ants, crazy ants, and carpenter ants. The bite of a field ant may cause some pain but because carpenter ants are so much bigger, their bite will cause even more pain. Ants that sting include fire ants, acrobat ants, and harvester ants. People can typically determine whether an ant will sting them by looking for a stinger on the ant’s body. A sting or bite of an ant may be very painful but in most cases, the pain and any swelling will subside in a couple of hours.
Which Ant Species are Best for a Home Ant Farm?
The most common species used in ant farms are the red harvester ants and carpenter ants. These species are generally easier to see once they are inside the farm and as they move. Today, ant farms have come a long way from when they were first introduced in the 1950s. Blue gel that is rich in nutrients is used instead of sand, and many farms even come with an LED light that illuminates the activity and allows for further exploration.
How Can I Build an Ant Habitat?
You can build an ant habitat yourself instead of investing in a ready-made farm. You will need a skinny aquarium or a small jar with a lid placed inside of a larger one so the ants will create their tunnels along the edge where they are more visible. Fill the larger jar with soil that preferably comes from the area where the ants lived beforehand. Keep the soil approximately one inch from the top so the ants do not climb out when you open the jar.
When finding the ants you can look for an anthill or you can order them online. Place the ants into the soil and create air holes in the lid of the larger jar. Feed them every few days by placing sugar, honey, or jam on the lid of the smaller jar. If you find the soil becomes dry, place a wet cotton ball on the outer lid for a few days.
What Happens to Worker Ants if the Queen is Not Present?
Without a queen, an ant colony will quickly die out. The female worker ants cannot reproduce and the entire colony relies on the queen to continue laying eggs and adding to the population. If the queen ant is not there, it puts the entire colony in jeopardy.