Winning The Battle Against Ants: Expert Advice On Control In Greensboro

If you've been looking for ant control solutions, you'll find some great tips and tricks here.

Ant Behavior: Social Hierarchy And Communication

Go-Forth Home Services employs educated experts with knowledge of entomology. If you're not familiar, entomology is the study of insects. Using science, we target ants in ways that work, in ways that ants cannot avoid. We also share with you methods that address ants at the root of the problem. Let's start by considering the hierarchy of an ant colony and how the ants communicate.

• Workers make up most of an ant colony. The job of ant workers is to collect food and liquids and bring them back to the nest. Yes, ants pick up droplets of liquid and carry them on their backs. Ant workers have surprising abilities and unique ways to communicate with each other. They use pheromone scents to mark dangerous areas and to create invisible trails to food sources. They constantly groom each other to detect hazardous materials. They collect and dispose of their dead in burial sites. These complex behavior patterns make ants hard to stop.
• Queens live at the heart of a colony. Some ant species have one queen, but most have several. The queens work together to produce offspring and tend to their broods. But, when danger is detected, they can separate and make new nests—a behavior referred to as budding. When budding occurs, an infestation can spread like wildfire.
• Winged ants are male and female reproductives. They emerge from their nests to go forth and create new nests. When you detect a winged ant or find ant wings lying around, it is a warning sign of a mature infestation that is spreading. It is critical to keep watch for this warning sign as ant problems are often hidden.

When applying ant prevention or control, you need to keep in mind how ants behave and how they respond to threats. The products and methods that work best are going to mitigate the risk of unwanted results.

Ant Dangers: Understanding The Risks Of An Infestation

When ants get into your home, there are a few behavior patterns to consider. These patterns will help you with your ant prevention and also give you insights into how ants may cause harm to your property or negatively impact your health.

• Some ants tunnel in wood. These ants are called carpenter ants. While they prefer soft, rotting wood, they are known to tunnel into sound and undamaged wood under certain circumstances. When left untreated, carpenter ants can cause a lot of damage over time.
• Most ants climb in trash receptacles. In your trash, ants can pick up tiny organisms, such as salmonella, and carry them to surfaces in your kitchen or deposit them in your packaged foods. In most cases, ants can easily go from trash to cabinets in a matter of seconds.
• Certain ants are attracted to the scent of decaying matter and will lock onto a juice spot on the floor where a trash bag sat next to the door, or crawl in your drains and other dirty places. These ants can make you sick if they crawl on your cutting board, dishes, silverware, or food shelves.

In most cases, ants in Greensboro are a nuisance. The health risks are negligible, particularly in clean homes. But given the right circumstances, ants can present a danger to health and property. As you consider these dangers, you can also link these behavior patterns to ant prevention and control. Carpenter ants are attracted to decaying wood, food sources attract ants to your kitchen, and decaying smells can lure ants from a distance. 

Ant Prevention Is Key: Effective Tips And Tricks

We looked at how ants behave in a colony and what they do when they get into your home. Now it is time to connect the dots between your ant problems and ant prevention methods that work. Let's look at how you can apply the facts you've learned so far.

Ants In The Kitchen

The common place to find ants is in your kitchen. Why? Because ant scouts travel long distances to find food sources. When a scout finds a food source, it lays down a trail of pheromones back to the nest. These pheromones are picked up by other workers, and they follow the trail to the food. One trail can bring thousands of ants into your kitchen. Since your kitchen is where you make food, it is a likely place for ants to find food to feed their colonies. Here's how to get rid of ants in your kitchen.

• Address food on the floor.
• Clean grease and juices off the sides of your oven.
• Wipe down all surfaces to remove the scent of ant pheromones.
• Protect your indoor trash with a cover and reduce smells by routinely cleaning the receptacle.
• Keep food covered when it is left on your counter.
• Apply pest-proofing to keep ants out.

Remove foods and food smells to control ants in your kitchen and apply physical barriers to keep them from entering.

Sugar Ants In Your Pantry 

Some ants are referred to as sugar ants because they prefer sweet sources of food. These are the ants you're likely to find in your pantry. In nature, they eat nectar, plant sap, and honeydew. In your pantry or kitchen cabinets, they'll dine on sweet things. Here's how to get rid of sugar ants by addressing the food they might find indoors and outdoors.

• Move hummingbird feeders away from your exterior.
• Address aphid issues in your landscaping to reduce honeydew.
• Address lawn weeds to reduce sources of nectar. 
• Keep your exterior trash covered. Sweet condiments in your exterior trash receptacle are a delicious treat for sugar ants.
• Wipe down shelves and the bottoms of your cabinets to remove sugar and other food debris.
• Wipe honey jars before putting them back in the cabinet.
• Keep certain foods inside sealed containers.

It is hard work to control these food sources. You don't have to completely control them. All you need to do is reduce the food to reduce ant activity.

Ants That Eat Protein

Some ants have a preference for meats. Sources of protein near your home will attract them to your home and cause them to establish nests. You'll see the evidence of these nests by the mounds most ant species create on the surface of the ground. They will also get into your home and search for food. Here's how to get rid of protein ants.  

• Protect exterior and interior trash with covered containers that are kept free of strong odors.
• Clean up around your grill.
• Refrain from putting food out for dogs or cats.
• Consider putting meats in a plastic bag before putting them into your trash. You can use the bags from the grocery store.
• Reduce pests around the exterior of your home and arrest indoor pest infestations. These ants eat bugs, both living and deceased. 

As you consider how ants behave, and you take steps to control them, remember that these methods don't disturb ants and make problems worse, so you can apply them without concern for colony budding. If you steadily apply control of food sources with sanitation, protect your food, apply pest-proofing, and consider exterior attractants, you can slowly push ants out and keep them out. If they don't take a hint, or you have conditions you can't control, remember that professional ant pest control is available.