Ants
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Ants are amazing little critters, and by far one of the most nuisance pests we deal with in the area.
You’ve probably heard about how strong ants are. They can lift up to 20 times their own body size. They are also very resilient, able to deal with changing environmental conditions, food supplies, and attacks we homeowners throw at them.
Ants are easy to identify, although they are constantly being misidentified as termites. Ants have an elbow joint in their antennas while termites don’t. Ants have the classic three segmented body with a tiny waste (petiole) while termites have a thick waste (just big boned actually). When the ants and termites have wings, (only the reproductive males and females do) ants have one pair of wings while termites have two pairs of wings. Looking for these characteristics, you can easily tell the difference between the two, and will feel a lot better when you find you have an ant issue and not a termite issue.
Ant species in Kansas City
There are a number of different ant species in the area. The biggest in size and quite common is the carpenter ant. They get their name from making their tunnels and nests in wood, but keep in mind they don’t actually eat the wood. They remove the usually soft, water damaged wood to make their tunnels and then kick out the old material. While the long term end result may be some structurally damaged wood in your home, I wouldn’t equate the damage to that of termites. Carpenter ants eat a variety of foods, from living and dead insects, meat, fats to sugary foods of all kinds, including honeydew and nectar from plants.
Some of the other species of ants your likely to see include the little black ant, pavement ant, harvester ant, thief ant and pharaoh ant, just to name a few. You’ll also be glad to know that while you could see a red imported fire ant in the area, they are not able to survive our cold winters and it would be rare to see them.
When you do encounter an ant problem, the solution is always a multi-step process. You need to first identify which ant you have so you are better able to know where it lives and what it feeds on. The Johnson County Extension office is a good place to start with identification and, with the help of our entomology lab, we can usually find out what it is. The second step will be to clean up and remove any food supplies they have access to. Food left on counters or on floors by your family are easy targets for foraging ants. Once they find food, they lay down a chemical trail that makes it easy for all the other ants to follow. Vacuum, wipe down counters and floors with hot soapy water, or even disinfect with mild bleach or cleaning solution to erase trails.
The final step is killing ants with either a bait or application of an insecticide. Spraying inside or outside the home with a labeled insecticide has the advantage of giving a quick kill, especially if you have successfully treated the nest area. Unfortunately, finding and treating the nest or source of the colony is not always easy. This is where baits can have a clear advantage over sprays. The foraging ants actually take the baits back and feed the rest of the colony. The drawback is it’s much slower (it can take several weeks to do the trick) and if you don’t use the right bait, the ants may not eat it. When we offer the right bait and there is good consumption, baits can be very effective.
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Contact Us
Juju Wellemeyer
Natural Resources and Mid/Small Scale Agriculture Agent juju.Wellemeyer@jocogov.org