Invasion of the Exponential Ants
July 11, 2006 on 11:35 pm | In Main, Pests |
It’s a little reminiscent of a sci-fi film. I woke up at 6 a.m. last week, bleary-eyed as always, poured my coffee and sat down in my study to check my email and watch a little Imus in the Morning. I noticed one or two carpenter ants on the floor, got up and killed them and didn’t think much of it.
Then about five minutes later they started coming out of the woodwork — literally. In about 15 minutes there were dozens of them not only in the study, but in the adjacent section of my kitchen. Yikes, I thought, I must do something, but what?
I got into my car and went straight down Wells Hill to Herrington’s, which is where I go whenever I have a problem, even at 7 a.m. I rummaged around the pest control section and came back to the counter with a couple of packages of baited “ant motels.â€
The friendly lady at the counter said I was lucky to get the last of them because they had had a run on ant killers — the result of an unusual surge in ant activity in people’s houses. She conjectured it was because the non-stop rains we had in late June and early July had raised the water table to a high level, forcing the insects out and into nearby homes.
The motels will do the trick, I thought. But alas, there was no immediate relief because the poison is engineered to work slowly. You see, if the little darlings die too quickly, they won’t get a chance to return to the nest, where they will feed it to their young and the queen. Then they all hold hands and die.
So after I left for work, my wife and kids killed as many as they could and used the shop vac to corral the others. Eventually the numbers diminished so that we no longer felt violated. But later that night the sound of metal being dropped repeatedly could be heard in the kitchen.
Evidently a mouse had gotten into the house was trying to pull the metal ant motel into his newly found hovel. The rodent, however, was frustrated by an opening that was too small to accomodate the poisonous tin, resulting in the clanging. This was too good to be true. A mouse was eager to eat ant poison. I even considered giving a tesimonial to Herrington’s about the brilliance of two-for-one toxicity. To top it off, the sticky trap I bought to catch the mouse now has a dead ant on it. Brilliant … just brilliant!
When I got into the office that morning and related my terrifying saga, my editor assigned two of our interns, Nathaniel Sobel and Eliyah Afzal, to interview people in-the-know and write a story on the emerging ant trend. Fred Baumgarten, who writes a column for us and is often skeptical of nature trends, told them “estimates of an increase in ant populations are ’subjective’ and that ’short-term fluctuations can be caused by any number of factors.’†Fred knows a lot more about these things than me, so I defer to him in such matters but …
Then Nathaniel and Eliyah called some pest control firms looking for information. One company told them they would have to speak to one of the exterminators, but “unfortunately they were all out killing ants.†So who’s right, readers?
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We too, have been plagued by ants. We ended up spraying around the outside of the house which seems to have done the trick. Also, I place bay leaves around my kitchen counter and in the cupboards to repel ants and other insects. Seems to help and as a plus, bay leaves are non toxic.
Comment by Judy Jacobs — July 12, 2006 #
Dear Terry,
I feel your pain. We’ve been battling carpenter ants for several months now, though in the last couple of weeks — whether because of the “ant motels” we bought or not — their numbers seem somewhat reduced. But just when we thought we had them under control, we started getting those pesky little ants.
The question addressed to me by the LJ interns was actually whether the increase in ant “sightings” was indicative of a population increase. My skepticism, therefore, was directed at the improbability of confirming or quantifying such an increase. How does one measure such a thing when there are billions of ants to begin with?
People often do report noticing more (or less) of certain things — more turtles crossing the road, more birds singing in their backyards, more ferns growing, more bees stinging, etc. The difficulty in all these cases is that accurately assessing populations of many types of living things is quite difficult, and scientists spend lots of time figuring out how to sample them to get some sense of populations trends.
Take birds, for example, which I am most familiar with. When someone tells me there have been more of, say, robins this year, is it because they’ve happened to notice them more, or there happen to be more in their immediate vicinity? Even those of us experienced amateurs, not to mention professionals, who conduct surveys such as the Christmas Bird Count are subject to such vagaries as the weather on the day or the survey. Only by the accumulation of large quantities of data do some of these “survey errors” get smoothed out.
As for the ants, it sounds as plausible to me as to anyone that saturated soil might drive them indoors more, and who am I to question the exterminators of the world? In other words, it could be a real phenomenon, but I think of it as somewhat outside the purview of a self-proclaimed nature columnist.
Cheers,
–Fred–
Comment by Fred Baumgarten — July 12, 2006 #
Well Terry, you have posed an interesting blog. Just imagine that you and your family decided to take a short cut through the Berkshires Valley of the giants and all of a sudden a giant foot came down and squashed you as you were innocently trying to get to Gt Barrington to see your cousins. How mean that giant foot was, seeing you as an invasion nuisance, and you had no chance to explain yourself to that giant!! Shame on you. Yes ant are a nuisance insect but I very much doubt that the ones in your house, or Fred Baumgartens were actually carpentar ants so you both have probably jumped to that conclusion. I too have had an ant march through my house over the last 10 or so days but it had nothing to do with the rains, and everything to do with some social order discovery. I had both tiny reddish ones, and larger black (but certainly not carpentar) ants. I watched there march, did NOT squash them like many others-(except those I might accidentally have not seen on my floor), nor did I even go get ant traps. They are fascinating creatures and quite interesting if one has the time to watch them, with inquisitiveness! If you ever had an ant farm when growing up, watching them was something. Anyway, great blog topic; they are mostly harmless and one result of their appearance in my house was a thorough cleaning of my counters of any attracting foods, such as sugar grains, sweet liquids, etc. The ants are mostly gone now, on their own, without any damage to my house or psche and though a few got accidentally squashed, I actually removed the larger black ones-hard to catch, but catchable-to the outside. But, just think of what it would feel like to have a giant foot land on top of you-in the Berkshires valley as you were innocently trying to get up to MASS, for whatever was on your mind! Feel the pain! Cheers!
Comment by Robin Leech — July 12, 2006 #
Terry…
All you need is love!!!
Don’t kill the ants…redirect them by finding where they are gaining access, then, take some coke (or pepsi, or whatever your favorite heavily sugared drink is) and make a trail away from your house!!!! It might take a five or six cans, but it works!!!!! Make the Trail far enough away so they keep going, PREFERABLY TO YOUR NEIGHBORS
(THE ONES YOU DON’T GET ALONG WITH) PROPERTY!!!!
Remember..MILES FOR SENATE WRITE IN 2006!!! Our campaign slogan…
“It’s time for real people to take back the Senate”
Comment by Marshall Miles — July 12, 2006 #
Long live the ants! They provided much merriment in our house last night - my 2 girls, ages 4 and 7, have been shrieking “ANT!!! KILL THE ANT!!!” every time they see one, but last night they felt a little braver and started playing with one, letting it crawl all over their arms. Their giggles were infectious (let’s hope the ants aren’t!) and I was glad to see them overcome a fear.
Comment by Jenny Hansell — July 12, 2006 #
While ants are annoying, most really are harmless. In fact, ants are the cleanest creatures on the whole planet. They spend hours each day cleaning themselves, and their antennae are always immaculate. I suggest to anyone doubting me to check out the following website: http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mantsdisease.html
Comment by Amy — July 13, 2006 #
Robin,
Thanks for reading the post. You may be right about these not being carpenter ants. Our receptionist here at the LJ, Jane McGarry, says that carpenter ants have wings, which mine did not have. But mine certainly work like carpenters. There are a bunch of them hollowing out a pine tree about 70-80 feet away from my backyard deck. They are picking bits of the tree up from the inside and dropping the bits onto the ground, forming a mound of sawdust-like material. I hope they are not inside my house somewhere doing the same.
Comment by Terry — July 14, 2006 #
THEY ARE BACK AGAIN. I SUGGEST A VERY STRONG POISON BARRIER AROUND THE HOUSE. TWENTY FOUR INCHES UP AND TWENTY FOUR INCHES OUT. THIS HAS A TENDENCY TO KILL ANYTHING CRAWLING INTO THE HOUSE. UNFORTUNATELY, RAIN WEAKENS THE BARRIER AND HAS TO BE APPLIED TWICE A YEAR. IT IS CHEAPER AND MORE EFFECTIE THAN ANY ONCE A YEAR PEST CONTROL, WHICH DON’T WORK. CARPENTAR ANTS CAN BE AS DESTRUCTIVE AS TERMITES. (CARPENTAR). DON’T FORGET THERESHOLDS AND GARAGE DOOR OPENING.
ALLEN
Comment by allen — August 15, 2006 #
Ok,to respond to Robin..ants are facinating to watch, right? They certainly are. OUTSIDE!!! Obviously you have not been one of the poor unfortuante souls that has been forced to co-habitate with the black beady little beasts. I am sure you have never had the pleasure of having to share your breakfast cereal with them. That would be Sugar Smacks to be exact. They don’t need an invitation mind you, they meerly wait inside the box until you open it and pour the cereal in your bowl. That’s when the real party starts!! Ants also love to help you with your dishes. They form a nice long trail all the way up to your kitchen sink and proceed to clean off all the little crumbs of food left on all the forks and bowls. Now this is a nice gesture because after all, we don’t want all of that extra food mucking up our dishwashers. One ant, two, heck, even 20 ants would be nice to watch but until you experience a true army invasion complete with camos and hard hats, you have no clue!!
Comment by Liz — July 17, 2007 #