Carpenter Ant Control

To be truthful, retail ant control products are sub-par. The sprays kill ants too quick. They can cause budding of ant colonies. Which can complicate your problem even further. Manufacturers make consumer pesticides fool-proof. That way, you do not poison anything. This limits the effectiveness of available products.

Moreover, it is more about the strategy, than the actual products you use. Whether that is some kind of home remedy or retail product, you need to know the biology of the target pest. You have to admit, people want an easy solution. They do not want to research an ant’s lifecycle and habits. Most people seeking a way to do it themselves, want it to be easy. They are fine with putting out some Terro Bait Stations, or dishes of boric acid and sugar. (Which is basically the same thing.) Yet learning a new skillset is beyond comprehension. The internet is plagued by horrible information. It is easy to find blog articles written for SEO. It is hard to find solid information on how to do pest control the right way.

Yeah boric acid baits are pretty safe to use. Yet most people end up just drawing more ants into their house with it. My opinion is to save the time and effort. And hire us to do your ant control. As a result, we will lower your stress levels by eliminating your ants. You can skip putting cinnamon on your counters.

Interestingly, about 80% of the population will never hire an exterminator. If you fall into this category, read the following articles:

If you see flying ants inside, then there is likely an ant nest in your home.

Flying ants are reproducing males and females. The males die shortly after breeding and the fertilized females will attempt to start a new colony.

Flying carpenter ant.

If you see flying ants, this is a sign of a mature colony. An apple tree must grow several years before producing apples. Likewise, an ant colony must grow several years before they send out these male and female reproductive ants. While thousands of acorns fall from a tree. Only a couple develop into trees. The same goes for the life of a winged female ant reproductive. Birds, lizards, and toads feast on them. Heat, desiccation and failure to find suitable nest sites also threaten their survival.

Thousands of these flying ants are released from the nest at just the right time. The temperature must not be too hot. Significant rainfall will have occurred in the past 24 hours. This is because moist soil is easier to excavate for nests. And the humidity will prevent them from drying out.

What Time Of Year Do Flying Ants Occur?

Late Spring Swarms: Carpenter ants and pavement ants.

Early Summer Swarms: Acrobat ants, little black ants, and pavement ants.

Late Summer Swarms: Acrobat ants, little black ants, harvester ants, pavement ants, thief ants, and cornfield ants.

Early Fall Swarms: Field ants, acrobat ants, pavement ants, thief ants and citronella ants.

Many people mistake flying ants for termite swarmers. Termites swarm in early spring in Cleveland, Ohio. The easiest way to tell them apart is that ants have a bent elbowed antennae and termites have a beaded antennae. Termites also have a broad body compared to ants.

Citronella ants nest in the soil. if the nests are close to your home, the swarmers can cover your foundation. This occurs in late October.

Since carpenter ants are nocturnal, we often cannot find them during the time of service. If you only report them to be random sightings, we are a bit limited in what we can do for interior treatments. We can inspect for water damaged areas. And do a crack and crevice treatment to these areas. Otherwise, we place bait in effected areas. Or just treat the exterior if weather conditions are correct.

Carpenter Ant Control Strategy

To get rid of carpenter ants, you want to protect your home with an exterior perimeter treatment. And you want to target the nesting sites directly if possible. This includes the main colony and any satellite nests. If we cannot find the nests, then we use bait to get products back to the main colony. Interior sprays generally are not necessary during the summer months.

There are many different products available for use inside.

Dust

Dusting is a great way to eliminate an area that ants can use. The benefit is that dust lasts for a very long time. Dust is not applied in exposed areas of your living space though. Dust is effective when injected into a wall, bath traps, subfloors, soffits, windows, doors, or under siding. Some dust will not work if it gets wet. And sadly, carpenter ants will be in moist crevices. If it is dry, we use Cimexa dust or Alpine dust. If moist, we use Delta dust or Nibor D.

Granular Bait

Granular bait is another good option. Especially if you have carpenter ants inside during the colder months. Carpenter ants feed on insect carcasses. So granular bait mimics this type of feeding. Carpenter ants tend to be picky eaters though. So, it is a good idea to have a few different baits available for them. Once inside, they seek water. In this case, strategically placed gel bait can knock them out fast. For this application, it helps to identify their pathways and entrances into the home.
Granular bait is best placed in areas of significant activity. For example, you can put bait on a business card and slide it into the crack on top of cabinets to get it being them. Or use a bulb duster to place granular bait into sink bases around plumbing lines. Or toss some into an attic. Effective baits are Invict Xpress, Maxforce Complete, and Advance Carpenter Ant Bait.

Foam

Foam pesticides are a great option too. The foam is applied from an aerosol can, with a crack and crevice straw. The foam expands to fill the crevice. Then slowly dissolves. This works similar to dusting. It doesn’t last as long but it has less of an inhalation hazard. We use Termidor, Fuse or D Foam.

Aerosol And Gel Bait

Sometimes the crevice to too small to apply dust or foam. In this case, we will use Alpine PT Aerosol or gel bait.
Strategically placed gel bait can be the most effective treatment inside. Especially, for those tricky early spring infestations.
Not all ant gel bait is labeled for carpenter ants. Fipronil gel baits work the best. Maxforce gel bait is our choice. You can get Combat ant gel bait from some stores. We recommend this to customers who want to bait the trees on their property. It is a great way to keep carpenter ants to a minimum outside.

Carpenter ants are most active just after dark and just before sunrise. If you are unsure where the carpenter ants are coming from, do a search. Go outside a half an hour after sunset. Use a flashlight and look for ant trails on tree trunks. This will identify which trees we need to treat. Search for ants entering your home. They are usually found crawling up under the bottom lip of the siding. But they can also use cable wires and tree branches to enter the home.

Customers report carpenter ants to be more sporadic inside. They will find one in the kitchen. Then they will see one crawling on the wall. Unlike sugar ants, they don’t make trails that you can easily follow. This is why a preliminary nighttime search increases your chances of success. You should be able to find the trails at night.

Identify: What trees they are in. What crevice they are entering the living space from. And where they are coming inside from. This will allow us to take a targeted approach.

The main colony, with the Queen, is in a tree outside. Her eggs need the high humidity that a tree provides. Carpenter ants can trail into your home directly from nests outside. Otherwise, they set up satellite nests in your home. These nests are in water damaged wood. Older larvae require lower humidity. As a result, satellite colonies consist of only workers and older larvae. In other words, the queen is not in your home.

You will want to target both the tree with the queen, and any nests in your walls. Moisture accumulates under windows and doors. Nests can be there. Otherwise, think plumbing leaks, gutter issues, and roof leaks.

We use a moisture meter to locate potential nests in walls. Readings over 30% indicate a moisture problem. Keep in mind, the wood can be previously water damaged. It doesn’t have to be currently wet. It only needs to be softened enough for them to excavate the wood. Carpenter ants also burrow into foam insulation. They can also be found behind fiberglass insulation.
Ants can occupy your home from trees up to 750 feet away. The problem can reoccur or continue if the correct tree is not treated. We treat the base of all deciduous trees on your property. Evergreen trees usually are not a problem. If there is a suspect tree in an adjacent property, it is a good idea to get permission from the Owner to treat it. We can include this in the service if you receive permission.

When To Treat Outside

Once the weather warms up to around 65 degrees, ants become active outdoors. From that point, the ants inside are linked to outside. In Cleveland, Ohio, this occurs in Mid-April. As a result, the exterior treatment does most of the work. In most cases, an inside treatment does not need to be performed during warm dry weather. Exterior only treatments fail when: It is too cold outside. It rained shortly after treatment. Or when vegetation touches the house.

Step 1: Granular Bait Application

Our first goal upon arrival is to develop trails outside. We do this by applying Intice 10 Granular bait. We scatter it along sidewalks, driveways, patios, landscape edging, and stones. Ants love it. They pick it up within minutes.
We also apply a two-foot band around the perimeter of the home. We make this the outer ring, then apply the foundation spray as a separate inner band. This draws the ants inside your home out. It pulls them through the spray to access the bait. We use the same technique treating trees for carpenter ants. A similar effect is seen when we spray along the baited paved areas.
We give it a few minutes for the ants to start picking up the bait. Our exterminators take this time to spray the exterior of the home and knock down spider webs.

Step 2: Apply Liquid Residual Spray

By far, the best active ingredient to use on ants is Fipronil. It is devastating to social insects. Cleveland pest control companies rely on fipronil foundation sprays. So much that they skimp on inspecting and tracking down the nests outside.
For complete control, we treat the foundation, along driveways, walkways, and landscape edging. You cannot spray Fipronil inside or in the yard. You can spray around a tree for carpenter ants, but you cannot spray along the driveway for sugar ants. Instead, we use an EPA Reduced Risk product to spray ants away from the foundation and inside. Alpine WSG is very effective and low risk. The benefit is the transfer effect it has. It has a very similar effect to fipronil. Over the counter sprays act fast without this transfer effect.

Most people spray up a few feet and out a few feet from the foundation. While this helps, it only helps for so long. Heat, moisture and UV light break down pesticides sprayed out in the open. After a while, bugs can walk across the foundation spray without dying. That is why it is so important to spray under the bottom lip of the siding. The spray doesn’t break down as fast, and this is where most ants enter the home. We use an angled nozzle to spray under the bottom lip of the siding.

Countering Pesticide Resistance

When you use the same product over and over, pests will gain resistance to that pesticide. Prevent this by rotating pesticides. For example, if your initial treatment fails, we follow up with a different product.

On top of that, we enjoy targeting your pests with products that work in different ways. That way, even resistant populations do not stand a chance.

Our outside ant spray list includes Fuse, Termidor, Premise 2, Sumari, Advion WDG, and Alpine WSG. This gives us three modes of action: Fipronil, Neonicotinoids, and Indoxacarb. In most cases, we apply a fipronil product to the foundation. A pyrethroid goes around windows and overhangs (for spiders). A neonicotinoid along driveways and sidewalks. And indoxacarb as a gel bait to the trails. We also have an indoxacarb spray when we must follow up soon after the initial service. Indoxacarb is interesting. It uses the insects’ digestive enzymes to turn into a toxin. This makes it a low-risk product.

Step 3: Tracking Ants

The fun part comes after we spray. It is time to find the trails! We do this by walking around the granular bait application. By now, ants will have found the granular bait. It should be easy to see the ants transporting it back to the nest. We search the cracks in the pavement especially. If they lead us to the nest, we treat it directly. Soaking nests with spray work well. Otherwise, we mist trails with non-repellent liquid residual spray, or bait it. This uses the workers to carry the product right back to the nest. Only 10% of ants leave the nest. By doing this, we get the product to where it can do the most damage.
Nothing is better than flipping a rock to uncover a nest. A large flat screwdriver is best to help lift the rocks for inspection. When we find these nests, we soak it with any spray that is allowed by the Label.
That pretty much concludes our small ant service. As you can see, we put a lot into controlling your ant population. A single service warranties your home for 60 days. Our quarterly maintenance plan warranties you year-round. We ask that you give the treatment about 5-7 days to achieve control. If somehow the ants survive, we will promptly return to address the problem- free of charge.

Store Bought Bait

You now know that store bought sprays are not good for controlling ants inside your home. But what about ant traps? They won’t counteract our products. And they can draw the ants out so we can track them better. So even if they fail in controlling your ant infestation, they will not work against you. They allow control products to be safely placed out in the open. That makes it easy to apply without much time and effort. Just place the ant trap where you are seeing them. It helps control ants when you can’t find the nest. This is good too. But if it is a giant colony coming in from the outside, your cheap bait station will not pack much punch. It is not a good idea to be attracting a large colony of ants to a place where you do not want to see them.

If you decide to use store bought bait, set out a variety of bait. Give the ants options. The two most common active ingredients in store bought bait are Avermectin and Borax. Borax can kill ants before they make it back to the nest. On top of that, an established colony reproduces faster than boric acid kills off workers. Not the best product choice, especially during summer. Placing a variety of bait can counteract the shortcomings of these baits.

Professional Bait

It is hard to find an effective bait station (ant trap) at the store though. Even professional bait stations leave much to be desired. Lakewood Exterminating has tested many stations over the years. We have found that it is more effective to bait with a syringe of gel bait. Or to place Maxforce Quantum bait in plastic bait trays. Everything else is meh.

We leave a bait station with each customer as an insurance policy. Yet they are not used as a primary means of control. We tell customers if the ants pop up again, or do not go away, to place the bait station on the trail. Allow 3-5 days to achieve control once you try a bait station. If it does not work after that time, customers can call us for a retreatment.

Ants live under rocks. Your driveway and patio are like big rocks to them. Once they colonize these areas, it is a simple expansion into your basement. They can be in the walls, under the floor, behind insulation, and in wood components.

It can be helpful to treat these areas. This is true, especially during the colder months. During this time these basement nests are the only active part of a much larger colony. Baiting ants in the less occupied basement is better than in the living space. Bait draws them out. And it can take several days for the activity to stop. Liquid bait stations or granular bait on the ledge atop basement walls work well. The middle support beams provide a pathway into other parts of the house. Baiting on this can stop them from popping out of an inner door frame or baseboard. Remember the goal is to track ants back as far as possible and apply products to these locations. During the colder months this is usually the basement. During the summer, this is outside.

Yes, bait is better applied outside during summer. It is best to draw them out, instead of in. During winter, they are only in, so anything goes. In our experience, baiting is better than spraying basements in most instances. We find that placing different baits provides the best results. Use patience in winter. The warmth of the structure can trick ants out of dormancy. As the temperature continues to rise, more ants become active.

Inside, ant nests are usually:

• Underneath concrete slab floors.
• Underneath showers and bathtubs (bath trap)
• In foundation walls and basement floors. Especially on the wall shared with the driveway. Look around basement windows.
• Near masonry or heat sources during late winter. For example, around the chimney or the floor near the furnace.
• Look for ants or debris kicked out from the nest. This midden looks like miniature gravel with ant carcass particles in it.
• Wooden support beams where it joins the top of the foundation.
• If there is moisture between the sill plate and the foundation, you can see them there.
• In a crawlspace attached to the basement.
• In foam insulation.
• Under doors, windows and in electric outlets.

We perform localized crack and crevice treatments indoors for ants. This is to inject a product into their entry points. Applying bug killer in exposed areas of the living space is saved as a last resort.

We use 5 different types of product formulations:

• Dust
• Foam
• Liquid Residual Sprays
• Bait
• Aerosol

We base what we use on a few different factors. The size of the crevice is the main factor. The presence of occupants is another factor.

Foam

Foam pesticides can easily be over applied. We only use foam if the crevice is large enough of a hollow void for foam to expand into. This works great injecting into door and window frames. It has no odor. It does not go airborne like dust or aerosols. So, it is very practical if the crevice is large enough.

Aerosol

Ants can enter the living space through the smallest of crevices. Sometimes it is so small the product doesn’t fit into the hole. This is the benefit of aerosols. We attach a crack and crevice straw to the can. And the product can go just about anywhere. The downside with aerosols is that we need to wear an organic vapor respirator. It is costly to do so. On top of that, the odor is strong. Thus, everyone needs to be completely out of that area until ventilated. It is not practical to use when people are around.

Dust

Dust is the preferable method to treat electric outlets, doors, and window frames. Vacate dusted rooms for 45 minutes. This allows any stray dust to settle out of the air. Lakewood Exterminating has a special tool called the Exacticide duster. This piece of equipment revolutionizes how dust is applied. The benefit of dust is that it lasts a long time. As a result, ants will not be able to utilize the treatment area for an extended period. The downside is that we do not apply it if occupants are around. And the crevice must be large enough to fit our duster tip. Between the two, we tend to stick to gel bait and bait stations inside.

Bait

Gel bait is the most practical when there are people and pets around. The gel bait is easy to contain, and the health risk of using it is low. Again, we apply these to crevices where people and pets cannot access. Or we place them in bait stations. Bait stations can be moved around. You can also pick them up when kids or pets are present. The amount of pesticide in the bait is very dilute. Even if a pet licked a dab of it, it likely would have no reaction. Think about how small ants are. The bait has to be dilute enough not to kill them upon consumption. They have to make it back to the nest and pass it around.

Liquid

We can use a pin stream crack and crevice, or spot spray with a regular old pump sprayer. But we have better success not applying liquid residual sprays inside for ants.

Have Ants Present For Our Inspection

Our strategy for indoor ant treatments is simple. Track ants back to where they are entering the living space. Apply control products to those areas. Think of where you have seen them. Have you seen them pop out of a crevice? This can be under a baseboard, door frame, sliding glass door, out from an electric outlet or window frame. You want to find this crevice before our arrival. Or, you will want to have enough ants for us to track back to these locations. Using store-bought sprays can be counterproductive to this method. All in all, you don’t want to do anything that will mess up their ant trail or contaminate our bait applications.

Why You Do Not Want To Spray Yourself

Our ant exterminators use non-repellent aerosols, foam, dust, granular and gel bait formulations. Non-repellent products kill ants slow enough that they can transfer it to other ants. The ants track through these products without altering their pheromone trails.

Repellent pesticides are pyrethroids. (Any product with the active ingredient ending in “thrin”.) Most organic sprays are considered repellents too. Between the two, they are the sprays sold in stores. These sprays kill ants fast. Pyrethroids label themselves as contact sprays with a residual. So, they drop the ants dead on contact and last several weeks after application. Organic sprays kill insects on contact yet have little residual. These characteristics come across as a repellent or barrier effect. Not exactly what you want when controlling ants though.

Professional ant control products are far superior. Using them is a different type of application too. With store bought sprays, you are killing the few ants that wander inside your home. And you are attempting to disrupt the foraging ant trails leading into your home. This isn’t the most reliable process. DIY ant spray can cause “budding”. This splits the colony and can complicate your issue even further. We only recommend using a fasting acting product is to soak nests with the spray. Locating nests can be difficult if you do not know how. With small ants there can be many nests in one super colony. Super colonies can spread multiple properties wide. This is why it is best to call an exterminator to get rid of your ants.

Bait And Switch

We always want to see lots of ants instead of none. Prior to our arrival, you may put out capfuls of sugar water/ honey/ syrup drops. Place them where you have seen the ants recently. This will develop a pheromone trail and help locate where ants are entering the living space. Many people use Terro ant bait. This has a similar effect.
Pre-baiting allows us to perform a “bait and switch”. This is where an ant trail develops after placing food attractant out. Once the ants come marching in, we replace the attractant with ant control products. The best option is to follow the ant trail as far back to the nest as possible. Then apply bait at this location. This cuts off the pheromone trail and prevents the ants from coming further inside of your house. In this case, we use a syringe to inject gel bait into the crevices in which they emerge. This contains the product so children and pets cannot access it. Otherwise, we use Maxforce Quantum bait stations.
With baiting, expect more activity before there is less. Ants will remain active for 3-5 days after feeding on the bait. Let them be if you see them.

Expectations for control is within 5 days. Professional ant control products have a transfer effect. It’s basically contagious. In that way, ant populations are reduced further than just killing the ants that directly come in contact with the treatment. In order for a transfer to occur, the products have a bit of a delayed killing effect. Thus giving the timeline for control, approximately 5 days.

If you are still seeing ants inside after this time, just let us know and we will promptly return to address the issue. Most call backs are due to inclement weather occurring post treatment, ants trailing in from neighboring properties, or ants accessing the home by vegetation touching the structure.

Pesticides are generally considered safe when applied according to label directions. Additionally, the treatment area should be vacant from children, pets and the elderly until sprays have dried. Usually an hour is sufficient. The area should be vacated for 45 minutes when dusts and aerosols are used.
While product use varies, we would like to share the following information. Our ant extermination uses different products than retail stores sell. Store bought bug sprays are fast acting. Professional products kill them slower. This allows the product to be carried back where it effects the colony.
Ant bait is a good example of this. When you see our exterminators applying ant bait, you might imagine your dog licking it up. Think of how tiny ants are. The product has to be dilute. Otherwise, it would drop the ant dead on the spot. Any ant bait that we use is applied in bait stations, or injected into crevices.
There really is no need to spray bug killer inside where occupants can come into contact with it. What our ant exterminators do is track them back to the hole they are entering the living space from. Then a localized crack and crevice treatment is performed. That way nothing is left exposed inside for anybody to come into contact with. Reduced exposure reduces health risks.
Outside we use a few different products. We apply a granular bait at every ant job. in most cases, it will be a borate bait. Borates are heated boric acid. Once a pest ingests it, they cannot absorb nutrients from their food. Borate baits are approved for use in organic pest control. Boric acid is used as a laundry booster, in slime activator, and in contact lens solution. We scatter this bait enough so animals cannot practically consume more than a scant amount.
The most used professional ant control sprays have the same active ingredients as popular pet flea medication. These flea medications are applied monthly to pets’ necks. The FDA allows this since pets do not live long enough to be effected from chronic exposure.
At certain times we utilize products with Indoxacarb as the active ingredient. This has a Meta active effect. In other words, the ant’s digestive enzymes is what turns it into a toxin. This differentiates between target and non-target organisms. At Lakewood Exterminating, we love low risk products that are highly effective. Our exterminators also take the time to apply them in ways that reduce exposure risks.