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mellowtigger) wrote2024-05-15 04:42 pm
ants
When I walked to the local grocery store last week, there were ants on the sidewalk everywhere. They are out in force this year. I even had some young guy knock on my front door this week as he was walking the area trying to sell ant granules. I didn't take him up on the offer, but I might have to find something online now.
I've seen them occasionally at my kitchen sink for weeks. The same things are crawling over sidewalks everywhere. Last night I saw one in the upstairs bedroom sink at the drain, so today I decided to take a picture of one and try to identify it. The image is very blurry because the camera insisted on focusing upon the mesh behind the glass pane. It's easy to tell the ant is 5 grids long from top of head to bottom of abdomen. I measured 5 grids and it came out exactly 1cm long, so I'd guess this one is about 11mm.
I explored here to see what they are.
https://extension.umn.edu/insects-infest-homes/ants
They sure look to me like carpenter ants, which is a bad idea if they're inside my house. I went looking in the basement under the kitchen area, and I can't see anything there like ant activity. I really do hope they're coming from outside for water. I guess I'll be researching options for granules to put around the edge of the house, though. I hate to kill them, and I dislike putting poison anywhere near where I'm growing plants that I'll eat, but I can't have them damaging an already old home.
Is there an ant apocalypse happening this year, like the cicada swarm we were warned about? These things are everywhere for blocks around, not just my house. This article says the forecast for the midwest USA includes ants as they move inside in search of moisture. *sigh* And it's around the sinks where I find them roaming.
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Carpenter ants only nest in wood that's already rotten (typically moist and rotten). They compete with termites and generally succeed in keeping termites away, as well as other less nice ants. They also make centralized nests in one piece of rotten wood instead of making tunnels all over in the wood like termites. Generally carpenter ants are not a threat to structures. Displacing relatively friendly insects often opens the door to less friendly invasive species that are also much harder to kill.
But I don't know enough about ants to confirm your attempt at an ID. If they're all over the sidewalks, that seems less likely. And that description sounds like "pavement ants": https://www.google.com/search?q=pavement+ants&sca_esv=697ef796fdf142b1&sca_upv=1&sxsrf=ADLYWIK8X7dFVuzqwbYx8Amh2g4VYPxSUA%3A1715815932828&source=hp&ei=_EVFZq6OMNLx0PEPqeuIsAU&iflsig=AL9hbdgAAAAAZkVUDKtmOwsz-mis6tnHGDRm4gsANurU&ved=0ahUKEwiu_LG56JCGAxXSODQIHak1AlYQ4dUDCBc&uact=5&oq=pavement+ants&gs_lp=Egdnd3Mtd2l6Ig1wYXZlbWVudCBhbnRzSJgLUABY-QhwAHgAkAEBmAEAoAEAqgEAuAEDyAEA-AEBmAIAoAIAmAMAkgcAoAcA&sclient=gws-wiz
I might suggest a basement dehumidifier tho, along with putting out little bowls of water for the ants. Insects and ants in general come inside in search of moisture. Carpenter ants are slightly special in preferring extra moist places to nest. I highly recommend keeping carpenter ants around if those aren't already.
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https://extension.umn.edu/insects-infest-homes/ants#field-ant-42363
From this photo, it's hard to ID this lady online. You could be right but she could be a Formica (Field ant). This seems much more likely if it looks similar to what you're seeing out on sidewalks. Pavement ants are smaller, usually about half the size of carpenter ants and Formica.
I would agree that most likely they are in your house searching for water right now, given that you're finding them near sinks. If you are only finding a couple at a time, they're probably just individual foragers and not a colony that has set up a nest.
You might have an easier time with identification if you trap a worker and then freeze her to euthanize her.
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