Carpenter ants are seen as a big problem for homeowners. However, in nature they serve a very important role. Once you understand carpenter ants a little better, you will understand why they infest a certain area and whether you can control the infestation yourself or if you need the help of a pro.
These ants will target dead and decaying wood in order to build colonies inside of it. They will use their mouthparts as chisels and tunnel through the wood. However, they will not eat it. Instead they have a diet similar to that of other ants, consisting of protein and carbohydrates.
The role of this species in the ecosystem is to destroy dead and rotting wood. This means that if these ants are anywhere on your property, they have found this type of wood. If they are indoors, there are wooden structures in the home that are either under poor moisture conditions, or that are rotten. If the carpenter ants are outdoors, then you have dead trees that they are tunneling into.
Indoors, a carpenter ant infestation is never good news, because the ants will spread from dead wood to healthy wood, causing tremendous damage. On top of that, controlling the infestation can be difficult. These ants have a varied diet so baits are not as effective, and because they are inside wood, surface treatments will only affect the workers and not the queen. In this situation, your best option is to work with a pro.
Outdoors however, the presence of carpenter ants indicates that there are problems with the trees on your property. In certain situations, it’s enough to remove the dead wood from the branches or trunks that are infested by ants to save the tree, but in others, the rot issue cannot be stopped by pruning alone. Eventually, the rot would spread to the heartwood of the tree and kill it entirely. On top of that, certain tree species have trouble stopping the spread of rot fungus.
So seeing a carpenter infestation outdoors in one of your trees, means that the tree requires a rapid intervention. You can get in touch with a certified arborist who will be able to determine the extent of the rot inside the tree. For getting rid of the carpenter ant colony itself you can get in touch with us. Contact us today if you have any issues with carpenter ants either indoors or outdoors.
