One of the largest ants that are commonly found in the United States is the carpenter ant.
They are well known for invading and infesting homes and if they are not discover early, may cause serious damage to the building structural.
Although there are many different species around, the two most commonly found in the country are the black carpenter ants and Florida carpenter ants.
What They Eat Carpenter ant can eat a wide sources ranges of food, depending on the location and places where they nest.
When indoors, they can feed on sugar, jelly, meats, syrup, honey and sweets that contain protein and sugar and when they are in outdoors environment, they will eat living and dead insects.
One important points to note is that although carpenter ant damage wood, they don't eat wood.
Where They Live Carpenter ants prefer to built their nest in moist wood environment.
Indoors, they are likely to nest in decayed wood, bathroom tiles, tubs, walls, behind siding, in attic, insulation, sink, attic beams, showers and dishwashers or hollow spaces such as wall voids, curtain rods and doors.
Outdoors, they will found rotting trees, tree roots, tree stumps and logs buried or lying on the ground as the best places.
Damage There might be serious building structural damage if carpenter ants invades as they will tunnel through the wood and create galleries.
Prevention Don't wait for the carpenter ants to invade your home before you take action.
Prevention is always the best way.
To effective prevent carpenter ants from invading your home, regular visual inspections is necessary and to enforce that, you will need to have a list of steps and plans.
Check out some of these action plans: 1.
Reduce or removing any possible 'doorways' for carpenter ants to enter your house.
If any trees touch your house roofing or siding, trim it so that there is no direct contact between them.
2.
Focus on all openings where pipes, wires or anything that connect and enter the house.
Make sure that they are tightly sealed.
Repair any plumbing or outdoor water taps leak as well as check out roof edges, attics, door, window frames.
3.
Don't delay the repairing of any cracks to the foundations as somehow, these insects are able to found it faster than we do.
4.
If you need to bring the firewood into your home, examine them and make sure that they are carpenter ants risk-free.
Never store these firewood on the ground or stack against the sides of the home.
Stack them up off the ground with a non-organic material.
5.
The nature of carpenter ants is that they are very attracted to moist, soft or rotting wood.
So, regular checking of your house surrounding is necessary.
Removed any moist, soft or rotting wood, log stumps and waste wood will greatly help to minimize the risk factor.