ScientificName: Family Formicidae, Camponoyus spp.
Description: 1/4 for a worker and 3/4-inch long for a queen, they can have reddish-brown, black, or red bodies depending geographic location.
Habitat/Food: From their nests in the beams, floors or walls, they scavenge the house for food crumbs and insects usually at night. Carpenter ants prefer to excavate wood that has been damaged by water. These ants often set up satellite colonies inside homes from parent colonies located outside in a tree or landscape timber.
Life Cycle: Each colony is founded by a single fertilized queen. She establishes a nesting site in a cavity in wood. A colony does not reach maturity and become capable of producing young queens and males until it contains 2,000 or more workers. It may take a colony from three to six years or more to reach this stage. Each year thereafter, the colony will continue to produce winged queens and males, which leave their nest and conduct mating flights from May through July.
Organic Control: There are several types of carpenter ant control such as spinosad, pyrethrin, diatomaceous earth, and citrus products.
Interesting Fact: Recent studies have shown that carpenter ants follow distinct scent trails between the satellite colonies and the parent nest. Carpenter ants also rely on scent trails to recruit their nestmates to food.