Ants
Common Black or Garden
Ant (Lasius niger)
Black ants are widely distributed around the UK
and the rest of the World. They will frequently live in sandy
soil, in the foundations of houses and under paving etc. where
they causes little harm.
Problems occur when the 3mm long ants are out foraging for food
and enter buildings, becoming a nuisance and ruining food. Ants
will often form trails from the food source - usually sweet
foods - to the point of their entry into the building, through
cracks and crevices.
Nest sites start when a single winged female lays
her eggs. She will tend and feed the grubs and larvae that emerge
until they become the first workers for the new Queen. Approximately
8-9 weeks after the eggs are laid the first worker ants emerge.
These workers will tend the Queen and subsequent larvae as well
as foraging for food. Their food will consist of nectar from
flowers, dead insects and sweet secretions from green fly.
Mating usually takes place in late summer when
males and large females take to flight, they form large swarms,
which usually last for 2-3 hours. All the males die leaving
a small proportion of mated females to found new colonies.
Because of the location of their nests ants can be quite difficult
to control. Their nests can often be located outside under slabs,
tarmac or concrete, with little or no evidence of them.Contact
us
Pharaoh Ants & Ghost Ants
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They have a wide range of foraging and their nests are usually
well hidden. They are very persistent, with large colonies.
There are over 8000 different species of ant, the Pharaoh ant
being the only one considered to be of significance in terms
of public health. Pharaoh ants are tropical in origin and found
mainly in large heated buildings in this country.
Appearance
Worker ants are approximately 2mm in length, with the queen
being slightly larger at 4mm. Worker ants are red in appearance
with a darker abdomen. The worker ants are wingless. The queen
ants do have wings, but do not fly. Winged males will appear
periodically and mate with the queens.
A Pharaoh ant colony consists of queens, males, immature worker
ants, eggs, larvae and pupae. A colony can vary in size from
a few dozen to several hundred thousand individuals. Due to
their coloration Pharaoh ants are often referred to as red ants
however this is incorrect.
Life Cycle
The queens lay around 400 eggs throughout their lifetime in
batches of 5-10. The eggs hatch in about a week and take approximately
36 days to reach maturity. Queen ants live for about year and
worker ants for 9-10 weeks. Worker ants remove the developing
larvae from a nest and form a new (satellite) nest elsewhere.
The behaviour of the worker ants to the developing larvae
determines whether they develop into worker or queen ants. It
is the ability of the Pharaoh ant to establish satellite nests
in the absence of a queen ant that makes these ants so difficult
to eradicate.
Pharaoh ants will feed on almost anything, however prefer sweet
and proteinaceous foodstuffs. It is the sterile female worker
ants which are most commonly observed as they forage for food,
when a food source is found the information is communicated
to other ants using chemical (pheromone) trails. Therefore it
is common to see long narrow trails of ants moving to and from
the food source.
Pharaoh ants are tropical in origin, this is reflected in the
fact that they require a minimum temperature of 18°C to
breed, with 30° being the optimum. For this reason the ants
will inhabit warm areas such as boiler rooms and around central
heating pipe work. The large boilers and hot water pipes in
tower blocks, hospitals, prisons and factories make them particularly
susceptible to Pharaoh ant infestation.
Disease Risk and Damage
There are no specific diseases associated with Pharaoh ants.
However due to their extremely small size they are able to penetrate
all but the most secure packaging. This means that they may
contaminate foodstuffs intended for human consumption, with
pathogens picked up whilst traveling through buildings. Pharaoh
ant infestations within hospitals may pose additional risks
to human health.
Control methods for Pharaoh Ants can be extremely difficult
to eradicate, but control can be achieved by the use of juvenile
growth hormone analogues. These chemicals mimic the action of
juvenile growth hormone (produced naturally be the ants) and
prevent the larvae from developing as well as sterilising the
queens and winged males. The use of ant powders or insecticides
is strongly discouraged as this will encourage the formation
of satellite nests. Contact us |
