Black Ants in Your Home

Black ants ( Lasius niger ) are common all over the world and although they typically nest out of doors they are regularly found inside houses causing a severe nuisance. They are social creatures and live in colonies containing workers (infertile females), males, queens and grubs ( larvae ). Ants friend on the wing, so the "flying ants" are either males or immature queens.

You will find ants nests in dry earth around plant roots, with sandy soil especially tempting colonies. The sand used in house foundations, garden paths and terraces forms a good site for the queen ant to start a colony. Nests are increasingly being found within the walls of properties (cavity walls, for example). One a colony develops it can be not easy to get rid of.

The ants found inside are generally employee ants, which are foraging for food for the queen and the grubs. They have discovered that buildings inhabited by humans are a superb source of provision, especially sweet or sugary items.

Worker ants are scavengers and collect seeds, nectar, and even dead insects to take back to the nest. They also prey on greenfly, blackfly and other tiny insects, so can't be thought to be all bad. Though it is unpleasant and a bother to find a large number ants in your house, black ants do not transmit any serious diseases.

However, you should remember as well the ants could have travelled through unpleasant or dirty places during their hunting and before entering your home. This implies that they can taint food, making it unsuitable to eat.

Do not leave food uncovered if accessible to ants.If they have polluted food, dispose of in the dustbin ( wrapped first to prevent it smelling in the warmer weather). They can bite and they can squirt formic acid as a defence mechanism which can irritate those with sensitive skin.

There is no single method available to the public which is certain to achieve success in eliminating ant issues. Regularly it's better to rely on professional home pest control companies.

You can try the proprietary powders available at DIY stores and hardware shops however this regularly proves only to be a short-term answer, firstly because of the low dosages of active components permitted in domestic insecticides.

Secondly, there can be so many ants in one nest that it is not easy to exterminate the entire colony at one time. You will often find the issue re-occurs year on year and it's frequently worth spending some pounds to have the issue professionally treated.

The most prevalent treatment that a pro pest control company will carry out is a spray treatment of the infested area. This will usually have the effects of reducing or removing the difficulty for a period of some weeks or perhaps months. The operative should spray inside and outside the property where ants are seen and make an attempt to get insecticide into the nest itself although this is never possible.

The most successful, but also most costly system of curing an ant infestation is to drill holes into the cavity walls of the property and inject insecticidal dust into the cavity itself. This forms an impenetrable barrier, which the ants can't cross, and is 99.9% successful in removing ant infestations. Though the treatment is more expensive it lasts for many years depending on how dry the cavities are and has the benefit that once the holes are drilled it is an easy and comparatively cheap matter to re-inject the cavities with insecticidal dust every few years.
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