Pests inhabit our homes and act like kings. You can get rid of black ants in different ways: buy all kinds of drugs in the store at prices ranging from 20 to 1000 rubles; create special conditions at home or call exterminators, which will cost an average of 1,000 rubles.
We do not allow guests into our home, but we do allow uninvited guests. Moreover, their arrival will be a kind of preface to the daily struggle with them. We are talking about black ants that enter people's living spaces and destroy the comfort of families.
Currently, there are many options for their destruction, which differ in efficiency, cost and other characteristics.
General recommendations
If you find several ants in your apartment, know that they do not come alone.
The first individuals are scouts. They inspect your home for goodies and report the result to their colonies, after which hordes of worker ants appear in your apartment. To get rid of ants in your apartment, first start with general cleaning. This matter cannot be delayed. Put all food in the refrigerator or special containers, thoroughly wipe work surfaces and floors in the apartment using a cleaning product, soda or vinegar solution.
How to get rid of ants in an apartment? Find the queen's nest. This is the most important point, otherwise the process may turn into running in circles.
Destroying those ants that crawl around the house will lead to nothing, because in a day or two the queen will enrich the population with new colonies. If the fight against insects falls to the lot of the residents of an apartment building, then victory over the ants is possible only through joint efforts. In some advanced cases, you have to call in professionals for help.
Tired of fighting pests?
Are there cockroaches, mice or other pests in your dacha or apartment? We need to fight them! They are carriers of serious diseases: salmonellosis, rabies. Many summer residents are faced with pests that destroy crops and damage plants.
In such cases, our readers recommend using the latest invention - the Pest Reject repeller.
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Sprays and aerosols
Sprays and aerosols are effective in killing ants.
They have a number of advantages:
- safety for others;
- active chemicals;
- quick and high-quality disposal of domestic insects.
The disadvantages include:
- high cost (from 120 rubles and above);
- sedimentation of substance particles on interior items and indoor plants;
- strong and unpleasant odor (may cause allergies or headaches, nausea and vomiting).
Among the common types of sprays and aerosols:
- Raptor;
- Combat;
- Clean house;
There is no difference between domestic and foreign producers. They are equally effective. After using sprays and aerosols, it is recommended to wash your hands thoroughly, tightly close the release hole of the substance, and store the container in a dark and dry place away from fire sources, children and animals.
Let's celebrate! Such products can be used after 3-4 months have passed from the date of the last treatment. It is also recommended to read the instructions on the back of the cylinder before use.
Chemicals
Garden ants can be removed using:
- aerosol,
- traps,
- special crayons,
- gels,
- solutions.
Aerosol
Using an aerosol is a convenient and quick way to kill large groups of ants. They act instantly. Many cylinders are equipped with special nozzles that help penetrate hard-to-reach places to remove insects (cracks behind furniture, between baseboards, etc.)
When spraying, it is important to protect the respiratory tract, eyes and skin. Wear safety glasses and gauze or a respirator
Be sure to remove pets from the premises.
Traps
Home improvement stores offer special insect traps. They are made in the form of small houses. Inside there is poison with an odor attractive to insects. The trap has an adhesive base: it can be attached to a horizontal surface (on the wall of a kitchen cabinet, along which ants climb to the table).
Chalk
The product looks like regular school chalk. It has no foreign odor. Chalk “Mashenka” or its analogues is a proven remedy against cockroaches, ants and other crawling bugs over the years. You need to draw thin, barely noticeable lines along the usual ant route. An effective way is to set bait traps with sweet food and outline them with chalk. Insects are afraid of the smell of the active substance and leave the area of the house. To protect your country house from the entry of garden dwellers, you can draw a thin line on the threshold of the front door.
Gel
Gel paste is an easy-to-use product. Available in tubes similar to toothpaste, or in syringes with a special nozzle. Some gels have a pleasant chocolate aroma. Gel insecticides have a contact-intestinal effect. They cause death once ingested. Thus, you have a chance of poisoning the queen if the worker ant brings her the gel as a foraged meal. By destroying the queen, you will be able to remove the entire colony. Don't expect quick results. You will be able to get rid of ants forever in no less than a month.
Solution
To prepare the solution you need to purchase a product called “GET”. This is a granular preparation intended to be dissolved in water. The proportions for dilution can be read on the packaging. The resulting solution is poured into a container with a spray bottle. The liquid should be used to treat every corner of the apartment or private house where insects were previously noticed.
How to prevent the appearance: preventive measures
Undoubtedly, it is easier to prevent the appearance of insects in the house than to fight the ants that have already settled in the neighborhood. For prevention purposes:
- do not leave products in the public domain;
- Throw away trash promptly and keep your pets' dishes clean;
- immediately sweep away food crumbs from the table and floor;
- Check for cracks in the walls in the kitchen and bathroom. Eliminate them if necessary;
- Clean the house on time.
Ants in a private home are a common occurrence. Using improvised means or purchased chemicals will help you get rid of “annoying neighbors.” Complete destruction of the entire colony is possible with proper preparation for the hatching procedure, as well as by following the recommendations for the preparation of baits and repellers.
Preventive measures
To avoid the question of how to get ants out of an apartment on your own, they do simple everyday prevention at home.
- Products in the kitchen are put in the refrigerator or covered with lids (especially fruits and sweets). Containers with sugar, jars with honey and jam are tightly sealed.
- After preparing food and finishing eating it, wash dishes, wipe work surfaces, and sweep up crumbs on the floor. The kitchen is wet cleaned daily. Food waste is removed regularly, otherwise it will attract an army of ants.
- Carefully seal the cracks (especially under windows, behind baseboards). Insulate the gaps between openings in the walls and pipes passing through them.
Ants cannot tolerate strong odors. To repel insects that come into the apartment for food, cloves of garlic, bags of mint, cinnamon, elderberry, cloves, and medicinal chamomile are placed on shelves and in cabinets. Ant paths and baseboards are rubbed with garlic, smeared with sunflower oil, lemon or camphor.
Where do they come from in the house?
What is useful to know about black ants in order to deal with them more effectively:
- In an apartment building, these insects enter the premises through ventilation shafts from the basement or attic.
- In the warm season, female ants with wings enter the apartment through open windows.
- If in an apartment building one of the neighbors began to actively fight ants, then these insects will be forced to look for a new habitat, which means they will crawl into neighboring apartments.
- These insects love warmth, so during cold weather they try to find a more comfortable home and move into your house or apartment.
- The abundance of food is the main factor in choosing a place to live. If your apartment is not sparklingly clean and there is no regular cleaning of the premises, then soon expect uninvited black sneaks.
Note: black ants love the sweet juice secreted by aphids, but, nevertheless, they are classified as omnivores. This means that they can easily find food in the house: crumbs on the floor, dinner leftovers on the stove or splashes of grease, pieces of food in a pet’s bowl, “treats” from the trash can.
Methods to counteract black ants
To get rid of black ants in your apartment forever, you need to understand some principles of their existence. These insects are social creatures in which the entire colony is divided into castes: workers, soldiers and queen (female). The entire family is controlled by the queen, who reproduces and increases the number of individuals. And if she dies, then after a while the whole family will leave.
The main difficulty is that the queen never leaves the nest, so it is impossible to reach her directly. But the fight against workers and soldiers will not bring tangible results, since the female will constantly replenish the population of the anthill.
Today, many methods have been developed to get rid of black ants in an apartment. In this case, all funds can be divided into 2 groups:
- store;
- folk
Store-bought ant removal products
Among drugs against black ants, products in the form of gels, aerosols and powders show good results. They can be found in almost any hardware store. The most effective and convenient to use are gels in a syringe tube. This form allows the poison to be delivered to the most inaccessible places, closer to the queen’s lair.
Their operating principle is extremely simple. Worker ants find the poison and eat it. Since it acts gradually, insects manage to infect their brothers and the queen with it. The most popular gel preparations are DEET, Raptor and Great Warrior.
Among aerosols, Delicia and Raptor should be highlighted. They are characterized by a faster effect, but a shorter duration of action. Therefore, you will need to treat ant locations more often.
The cheapest and least effective means are various powders and plates. They are laid out in the path of ants and have the same principle of action as gels. If you cannot allocate enough money to fight apartment ants, powder preparations such as Anteater and Mashenka will come to your aid.
Folk remedies for insects
Craftsmen have also come up with more or less effective methods of dealing with black ants in the apartment. At the same time, some substances allow you to kill annoying insects, while others only scare them.
The most popular remedies for black ants that can be prepared at home are:
- Boric acid. In a small bowl, mix 1 pack of boric acid (10 g) with a glass of warm water and add 5-6 tbsp. l. Sahara. Instead of sugar, you can use jam or jam. Pour the resulting mixture into small containers and place it in areas with the greatest concentration of ants.
- Dry yeast. Mix 2 tbsp. l. dry yeast with the same amount of honey and place in a visible place. Such dishes kill not only individual individuals, but also entire anthills.
- Place a few pinches of wormwood, mint, anise, bay leaf and lavender in all rooms in the apartment. For black ants, their smell is intolerable, so they will most likely leave your home after a while in search of a more suitable home.
- Garlic. Periodically lubricate ant paths with garlic, as its smell is irritating to insects.
- Double sided tape. Cover all baseboards in the room with double-sided tape for a few days. Small pests that get on the adhesive tape will not be able to get out of it. There will be no one to care for the queen ant, and she will either die or change her home.
On the modern electronic equipment market you can find various ultrasonic devices for repelling insects. Manufacturers of such devices assure that ants cannot tolerate ultrasonic waves and try to get away from their source. However, in reality this is not at all the case. Ultrasound does not pose any danger to ants, so these gadgets are absolutely ineffective.
Having figured out how to get rid of apartment ants, you can independently drive these annoying insects out of your home or completely destroy them. A small colony can be removed using folk remedies. When dealing with a large anthill, it is better to use one of the store-bought products or use the services of a specialist.
Chemical methods of controlling black ants
Today, absolutely without any problems, you can find many devices that, thanks to the chemical components they contain, help cope with black ants and many other parasites. Consumers can choose between gels, aerosols, liquids, powders, crayons and traps. All these means can guarantee a solution to the problem. True, they differ in composition and method of use. In addition, the desired result is achieved only if the drugs are used correctly.
Liquid insecticides require individual selection. The fact is that some products from this group may be ineffective in the fight against ants. The way in which the appropriate drugs are used also changes due to the situation and the magnitude of the problem at hand. Only professionals can observe the correct dosage and strictly follow the pre-developed work plan for processing the object.
Popular folk remedies
Methods are the most common among the population facing the described problem. Not only do they consist of components that can be found in every home, but they are also easy to make and use.
Wonderful aroma
Ants have high olfactory abilities. Thanks to this, they find food over long distances, and this is what people use to fight them.
Note! The list of aromas that are unpleasant to insects includes the smells of plants such as chamomile, mint, tansy, garlic, lavender, geranium and elderberry. They can't stand cinnamon and ginger.
As well as essential oils of lemon, lemon balm, orange and anise.
These traps can be placed in a variety of ways. Some moisten napkins and place them in corners and shelves in the house, others prefer scented candles, and still others simply place sprigs of plants in the apartment. In any case, this is a reliable and effective method.
Yeast treat
According to reviews, the method actually helps to get rid of ants and return to comfortable living conditions. To expel creeping creatures, you need to prepare special balls. Yeast is mixed with sugar filling and placed in places known to insects. When they see such a delicacy, they want to treat their relatives and roll the balls into their holes. After this, they are unlikely to want to live in this house and will go in search of a new refuge.
Nuclear mixture
Arthropods have a bad attitude towards mustard and hot pepper. The recipe involves mixing the ingredients. For better effect, ground coffee is added to the composition. The resulting mass should be scattered on the floor in a private house and the cracks should be filled with it especially generously. This powder infects the respiratory tract of insects and impairs their ability to move.
Boric acid
Boric acid
5 g of the product in dry form should be added to a glass of hot water. Then sprinkle 2 tablespoons of sugar and dilute with cold water to get half a liter of solution. Saucers with acid are placed near the ant paths.
How to get rid of black ants yourself in the house and country house
You can fight ants using special chemicals and traditional methods that have been proven over the years. Let's consider all the ways to help remove unauthorized residents.
Folk remedies against black ants
Folk recipes, as a rule, use available, improvised means, most of which can be found in every housewife’s home.
Smelling herbs from ants
Ants have very developed olfactory receptors. They can detect odors tens of meters away. It is this ability that allows them to find food in difficult conditions. But not all smells are pleasant for them. Some scents repel insects and even cause them to retreat.
Black ants cannot tolerate the scents of the following plants:
- Lavender;
- Chamomiles;
- Wormwood;
- Mint;
- Tansy;
- Elderberries;
- Anise;
- Garlic;
- Geraniums.
Also, the smell of some spicy seasonings is unpleasant for them: cinnamon, turmeric, ginger.
To repel insects, you should place herbs or sprinkle spices in the area where ants have been noticed. Within a few days, the “neighbors” must leave the home.
On a note! Tansy and wormwood repel not only ants, but also flies. If you constantly keep bouquets of these herbs in the house, then insects will not settle in it.
Essential oils to fight ants
Another effective folk remedy for black ants is essential oils. You can use oils of lemon, cinnamon, mint, lemon balm, lavender, orange, geranium, and anise.
There are several ways to use essential oils against ants:
- Every day for 5-7 days, light aroma lamps in the room where pests have infested.
- Every day, wipe floors and furniture with water and essential oil diluted in it.
- Place a few drops of oil in a spray bottle filled with water and spray the liquid into the area where the ants are crawling.
- Soak small cotton swabs in ether and place them near food and in places where ant paths have been noticed.
How to remove ants from your home and country house yourself
Recipes with boric acid against ants
The recipe uses boric acid powder. The drug is sold in pharmacies and is quite inexpensive. The substance, when it enters the intestines of insects, acts as a poison. This method allows you to get rid of not only ants, but also cockroaches. To deliver boric acid to the pests’ stomachs, you need to prepare a treat for them.
Method No. 1
Mix a couple of bags of boric acid with a glass of any sweet jam. Place the treats in plastic jar lids or any other convenient small container and place them in the room (on the floor, on tables, on cabinets) where the ants have infested.
If there are too many insects, you should repeat the procedure after 7-8 days, replacing the poison with fresh one. Usually after 2-3 days you can notice dead insects and their reduction in the house. Those ants that did not have time to eat the poison still leave the dangerous place after seeing the mass death of their “comrades.”
Method number 2
Boil two or three potatoes along with a couple of eggs. Mash the potatoes and add egg yolks to them. Add 2 packs of boric acid and a little sugar there. Roll the resulting mixture into small balls and scatter them around the room.
The effect of the poison lasts for 10-15 days, then you can repeat the procedure. But usually the ants disappear the first time.
Reasons for the appearance of black ants in an apartment or house
Ants in a private house
Nature is rich in a wide variety of different types of living organisms. Among them there are insects such as ants. They are classified according to different criteria, and not every variety can live in an apartment or on a person’s private plot.
Note! So how to get rid of black ants in the house? Large black ants tend to inhabit people's homes. They prefer to move to a warm room during cold weather to search for food and shelter
These ants are omnivores, so they do not mind eating human food.
There are several reasons for the appearance of “domestic” insects in the house. The main problem is the unsanitary situation. Clutter and a large amount of garbage in the house are attractive conditions for ants to live. They, of course, do not appear out of nowhere: they can be accidentally brought in from the street with food, furniture or bags of food. The most unpleasant source can be your neighbors’ apartment, because through someone else’s fault, insects will move into the nearest living rooms. In this case, it is practically useless to fight ants, because all neighbors should make efforts at the same time.
Note! It is easy to prevent unwanted guests from appearing in a private home. To do this, it is enough to clean the room and try to maintain it
It is necessary to remove dirty dishes and unopened food from tables to minimize the possibility of attracting crawling creatures.
see also
- How to get rid of ants with soda
- How to get rid of winged ants in a private house
- How to properly install a piston on an ant
- How an ant hurried home summary for a reader's diary
- How to get rid of black ants in an apartment once and for all
- How to deal with black ants in an apartment
- How to overcome ants in the garden
- How to set the ignition on an Ant scooter
- How to get rid of small red ants in an apartment
- Why did ants appear in the house?
- I dreamed about ants, what is this for?
Preventing the appearance of house ants
It is easier to prevent an insect invasion than to remove them later using all sorts of methods. We list the basic tips for preventing the establishment of small ants in your apartment or private home.
- Maintain cleanliness and do not allow food residues to accumulate.
- Take out the trash and wash dishes for animals in a timely manner. In this case, even if a scout ant looks into the room, it will not find anything attractive in it.
- Regularly wipe kitchen surfaces with a damp cloth, store food in airtight containers and do not leave jars of sweets (jam, honey, condensed milk) open on the table.
- Sealing cracks and pipe joints will help get rid of ants for a long time, especially in the kitchen, bathroom and balcony.
- You can hang special insect repellent sections near the ventilation grilles.
- Don’t forget to communicate with your neighbors - if one of them has ants at home, they can easily move in with you.
A messy kitchen is one of the reasons why ants appear in the house. Insects can cause a lot of trouble, but you can get rid of domestic ants in your apartment yourself and forever using traditional methods and the use of chemicals. As a last resort, it is possible to use the services of specialist exterminators. Maintaining cleanliness is the main condition for preventing insects from appearing in your home. However, this does not give a 100% guarantee, especially if you live in an old house or next to antisocial people.
Why are ants dangerous in a living space?
These insects themselves are not dangerous. Everyone knows that ants are very smart, they live in colonies and any person can envy their ability to work. The danger comes not only from the insects themselves, but from the products of their vital activity.
Colonies grow quickly, insects leave behind waste on which microbes begin to accumulate.
In addition, if the “hard workers” cannot steal a large piece of food at once, they hide it and return to it again and again. Food scattered in corners begins to rot and mold, becoming seedlings for bacteria.
Making their way into stocks of cereals and other bulk, dry foods, ants leave their saliva and feces on them. And this can become a source of toxins for humans. When bitten, insects release a toxic substance that causes redness and swelling of the skin, even in people who are not prone to allergies.
Under no circumstances should you put up with uninvited guests. And it is advisable to get rid of black ants in the house as soon as possible, because their population is growing every day.
Important! Ants can carry infection on their feet and infect not only people, but also animals.
Why can they start?
There can be many reasons why pests appear in your home. But the main one is unsanitary conditions, which will have to be dealt with first. Examine the premises, objectively assessing their level of cleanliness. Risk factors include:
- uncollected food remains;
- no lid on the trash can;
- open sugar bowls;
- freely available sweets;
- unsealed packaging of bakery products;
- always available bowl of animal food.
In a home where there are small children, people with weak immune systems, people with allergies, asthmatics, the elderly and the elderly, deteriorating sanitary conditions can become a source of increased danger. And if uninvited guests first visit a trash can or sewer, it is likely that they will bring with them millions of dangerous bacteria, helminthic infestations and a host of other not-so-pleasant companions. Is it worth risking the well-being of your home if you can protect yourself by taking timely care to eliminate pests?
Recommendations
To stop the appearance of insects in a private wooden house, you should paint the foundation with creosote. It is worth inspecting the house for weak points that give ants unhindered access inside. It is necessary to seal holes and cracks in the foundation, walls and windows, as well as openings around incoming services. The sealed areas on the walls and foundation must be coated with kerosene, and on the windows - washed with soapy water with the addition of any fragrant essential oil to remove the odor through which insects find their way.
By using various control methods and further observing preventive measures, you can eliminate black ants forever.
Preventive measures
Prevention of ants
How pests get into the house is already clear. But what needs to be done to drive away the ants - first of all, you should take care of the prevention of this unpleasant phenomenon, namely:
- do not leave dirty dishes after eating, immediately wash and wipe the plates and cutlery dry;
- do wet cleaning in the kitchen every day;
- wipe all kitchen surfaces and sinks with a vinegar solution;
- Wash all bottles and cans thoroughly after use;
- seal food hermetically;
- remove all products that have a strong sweetish odor.
By following these rules, you can try to escape from an insect invasion. Keeping your home clean and tidy is always easier than getting rid of uninvited guests. The lack of comfortable living conditions will force them to leave, but if these measures are not enough, then more serious protection will be required.
How to deal with large black ants in the house
Most often, black ants are guests in your home, so make sure that they don’t like the room and they stop their raids. To do this you need:
- Immediately after eating, wash and put away the dishes;
- Wash the kitchen floor every evening;
- Wipe tables and sinks with a vinegar solution;
- Wash all bottles and jars thoroughly;
- Store food in airtight containers;
- For the time being, put away all products with a strong smell.
If you follow these simple rules within a week, perhaps the insects will disappear from your home; if this does not happen, you will have to use radical methods.
Start with safe folk remedies.
- Stir two small spoons of yeast and a spoon of boric acid into a glass of jam. Place the bait in flat containers and place it where these nimble insects were spotted.
- At least once a week, rub the ants' paths with garlic, this will disorient them. They find their way to food by the smell of pheromones.
- Fill a spray bottle with water, add a spoonful of dishwashing (or floor) detergent, a few drops of citrus oil and spray near windows and doors.
- Place aromatic herbs throughout the house, the smell of which is unpleasant for black ants - elderberry, mint, wormwood.
- At the threshold, sprinkle pepper, talc, cinnamon or detergent powder.
- Place coffee grounds where there is a concentration of ants.
- If ants live on the site, you can protect the house from their invasion by treating the foundation of the house with creosote.
If unwanted neighbors never leave your home, then it’s time to use chemicals.
Traps are effective against ants, but not those where they stick or die on the spot. The effect will be achieved only if the ant takes the poison and carries it to the nest. Traps are placed along paths, in places where insects accumulate, near baseboards, behind furniture, in ventilation shafts. Among all the traps, the most popular are “Combat” and “Raptor”, but “Raid” is more designed to fight cockroaches; it is ineffective against ants.
Modern preparations in the form of a gel, for example “Rubit” or “Great Warrior,” have proven themselves well. The poison does not act instantly, so the scouts manage to bring the “poison” to the nest and infect other individuals. The gel should be applied near their paths, near water sources, along baseboards, in corners.
It is rare, but it happens that black ants create a nest right in the house. And when traps with poisonous bait do not produce results, an insecticide in the form of an aerosol or emulsion must be used to destroy the nest. If you find a nest or if it is impossible to get close to it, treat it with aerosol “Combat”, “Raptor”, “Dichlorvos”. Concentrates that are odorless are more effective - “Get”, “Delta Zone” or “Lambda Zone”. Know that until the queen is destroyed, the ants will never leave your territory.
If an anthill is located on your property, large black ants will enter the house again, so you need to get rid of their nest. For information on how to do this, read our article on fighting ants in your summer cottage. This is the only way you can completely solve the problem.
If you feel that removing ants is becoming your hobby, contact the professionals, then the insects are guaranteed not to appear in your home within a year.
But a decisive attitude and a properly carried out operation to destroy ants should be crowned with success, start acting right now.
Benefits and harms
Black ants are not predators by nature - they feed on the substance secreted by garden aphids. That is why they contribute to the spread of aphids throughout the garden, trees and plants. Aphids are a pest - they suck juice and nutrients from tree leaves and plant stems, as a result of which they die. A large number of black ants in the garden invariably leads to the appearance of many aphids.
IMPORTANT: Spraying plants against aphids will not lead to complete elimination of this insect - after all, the ants will move their “nursery” to another place in the garden. We can also note some advantages of the presence of black ants on a personal plot:
We can also note some advantages of the presence of black ants on a personal plot:
- When building anthills, insects loosen the top layer of soil, due to which a large amount of oxygen enters the root system of plants;
- The result of the life activity of black ants is the enrichment of the earth with potassium, nitrogen and humus.
However, if a large number of black ants appear, it is necessary to immediately begin to fight them.
How do black ants reproduce?
To produce offspring, each colony has its own queen. Moreover, only one such individual constantly lives in the nest of black ants. The exception is the creation of a new colony when there is an urgent need for worker ants.
Mating of the queen and the male occurs in the last month of summer. After this she lays eggs. Young queens usually establish new nests, for which they independently prepare the first chamber of the anthill. The queen is fertilized by the male once in her life, after which she bites off her own wings.
How types of ants exist
These include:
- Red (pharaoh) ants, they are popularly known as “house ants”, since they are the ones who most often appear in the neighborhood of people. These pests are small in size, with working individuals reaching 0.2-0.25 cm in length, and queens from 0.4 to 0.6 cm. In cold conditions they die, so they try to settle only in well-heated places.
- Yellow and brown, thief ants. They can most often be found in a private home. Worker ants are small, from 0.1 to 0.3 cm, and the body is colored bright yellow or light brown. Due to their small size, they try to build their nests in hard-to-reach places, for example, in various crevices.
- Red (turf). Like species number 2, especially red ants are very small. Insect dace has a dark red or even black color. They choose cracks and crevices as their habitat.
- Big black ant. Their lair may not be located in the house itself, but, for example, on a plot near it, while you can see working individuals on your territory, since they are the ones who are able to travel long distances to search for food.
- Carpenter ants. The insects are large, black, usually live in the forest, but their appearance in a private house is very possible if it is built of wood.
Meet the black ants
Representatives of this species live in a colony, in which there is a class division into worker insects, males and the queen. The queen never leaves the nest. Working individuals are engaged in collecting and delivering food to the anthill. The size of each individual depends on the occupation and class category. So, the largest is the uterus, its length reaches 10 mm. Males usually grow to 5.5 mm, workers - 5 mm, and young females - up to 4.5 mm. The latter are distinguished by the fact that they can grow wings.
Another interesting fact is that the uterus can live up to 28 years. The lifespan of males is 1 month, that of a worker ant is from 1 to 3 years. The young female leaves the colony after fertilization to build her nest.
The peculiarity of black ants is that they love to feast on honeydew, a sweet liquid secreted by aphids. And that’s not all - in order to always have a sweet treat, the ants learned to breed aphids, create their own “pastures,” and, if necessary, move these “cash cows” to a new place.
