All ants have six legs, two antennae, a head, abdomen, and thorax. They live in and support large colonies with workers and queen(s). Most are attracted to proteins and moisture. But there are large differences as well. Their sizes range greatly, from a large 1″ Modoc Carpenter Ant to a tiny 1/8″ Odorous House Ant. Some have great destructive potential while others are world-class nuisances. Some are aggressive and others amiable toward other colonies.
Learn more about the two most common types of ant infestations you will find in and around your greater Nairobi Metro area home, and how All Pest Control Service can rid you of these pests through their ant extermination services.
Ants are colony-based pests that like to hang out in groups. Our goal is to achieve full colony kill, versus exterminating on contact. This ensures we rid your Nairobi home of carpenter ants and odorous ants for good. To make it happen, we offer several treatment options, depending on the extent of your ant infestation:
After you call, we’ll come and assess your home and your specific needs to create a treatment plan that fits.
Carpenter Ants will always start nesting in decayed wood. However, once they have completely colonized, other wood becomes fair game as their population continues to grow. The parent colony is where the queen resides but satellites (sub-colonies) can be populated with workers as well as more mature larvae, pupae and eventually, some swarmers (flying reproductive ants.) If you see more than one or two winged ants, chances are high that you have a mature colony, as Carpenter Ants typically do not produce winged swarmers until the colony is 4-6 years old.
Unknown to many is that Carpenter Ants are nocturnal. When you do see a few during the day, it is rarely more than just a tiny percentage of the entire population. This helps to explain why colonies go unnoticed for so long.
Carpenter Ants like to feed on other insects and the honeydew nectar of plants as well as protein and sugar laden food scraps. One common misunderstanding about these ants is that they eat the wood. They do not. Rather, they chew and bore through it to make living room for nests.
Start by looking for small, micro piles of sawdust below fixtures, cracks or holes. If there are insect body parts mixed with the sawdust, this is a sure sign of infestation. Also look for trails of ants that run from your house’s siding or foundation out into wooded areas or to dead wood (railroad ties, dead tree stumps, etc.)
Since there often might not be a queen ant within your structure, a less than thorough pest control treatment can unwittingly visually suppress the infestation for months or a year or so until it pops back up. If the queen ant is not located within your structure, the colony will not be successfully exterminated, even though the infestation may not be seen for months or a year or so until the colony repopulates.
The level of desired certainty is the key issue when treating for them. The more thorough we can be with our extermination and treatment approach, the greater and longer certainty we can confidently provide. Generally speaking, the need for drilling and injecting is drastically less these days due to new generations of extermination treatments for carpenter ants.