Sunday, July 13, 2008

How to Get Rid of Flying Ants

You are fed up with ants. I know it and you know it. It is time to send those bastards packing and effectively eradicate them from your yard. You are not alone my friend, for these insects have annoyed me ever since middle school when I was once dared to stick my hand in a pile of swarming ants for 10 seconds. I have an intense hatred for these vile beasts, so let me join you in your quest to the end of flying ants.

Before we move on to the good stuff about killing ants, let us first learn a little bit of information. Ants are highly social and are the most successful groups of insects. They feed on pretty much every food and love sweets. There are five very common ants: carpenter ants, crazy ants, odorous house ants, Pharaoh ants, and the thief ant. Each of these ants, in an attempt to survive, send out flying ants that will fly as far as possible to form a new colony of ants. This is their proven formula: mate, send the females out to fly, start a new colony and repeat. It has worked so far, but will it work again?

Knowing this, if you want to get ants out of your property, then you want to get rid of these flying ants. So, what are the steps that you will need to take when getting rid of flying ants? First, you are going to have to make sure that you know which type of ant that you are dealing with. I have listed the five most common ants, and google is can further assist your questions. Maybe in the future I will discuss these ants in further detail, but for now I won’t. Just know that it is important because some may be controlled with baits and others could require injections of insecticide.

After you have identified the ants, then you want to try and locate the nest. If you suspect that the ants are located in your house structure, then either consult a professional or try to find them yourself. Looks along the edges of carpet and baseboards, examine cracks, wires and poles. Be sure to also check around your house and anywhere where wood would be. Once you have located the ants, applying pesticide will usually suffice.

If you suspect that pesticides are not working, then you should consider baiting. For flying ants, when you see them make sure to spray them with a pesticide. However, for colonies you could also try a bait system. This will kill all new births from the colony while the rest of the adults will eventually die naturally. Another method that you could use is barrier treatment which will prevent entry into your property again.

Hopefully now you can get rid of another couple thousand ants and do your part in the fight against global infestation. Just remember that getting rid of flying ants will prevent future colonization. So times that times the number of thousand ants that inhabit each colony and your numbers could be impressive!

2 comments:

James said...

Nice and interesting articles you have. God bless you...

ruzzel01 said...

Excellent blog. I enjoyed reading it!

pest control