carpenter ants

Tracking Carpenter Ants

You need to find carpenter ant colonies before you can get rid of them.

Carpenter Ant Close Up

Set bait such as honey and wait until they come to feast, then follow the carpenter ants after they visit the honey. Yes, follow them! Carpenter ants form well traveled paths back to their colonies.

Carpenter ants are nocturnal so the best time to do this is at night.  You can pinpoint the ants if they are inside your walls by tapping the wall.

The colony area will have a hollow sound.  You can also hear the sound of a lively ant colony.  A soft rustling noise can be heard from a lively colony of ants at night.

Boric Acid and Carpenter Ants

You can get rid of carpenter ants with boric acid.

Boric acid is available in stores

Don’t be alarmed by the sound of this chemical. It is safe to use and is available online and at most hardware stores and garden centers.

If the ants reside in your walls you will need to drill a few holes and spray or puff the boric acid into the holes. You should make several holes to make sure you get the colony and the trails
to/from the nest.

Remember, there may be several colonies so continue to track and monitor the trails made by the carpenter ants and repeat this process if you find additional colonies.

The carpenter ants will take 7-14 days to die.

Carpenter Ant Colonies

Carpenter ants make their colonies indoors or outdoors.
carenter ant colonyOutdoor colonies house thousands of ants and there is always a home nest (where the queen ant lives) and satellite colonies with smaller pockets of worker ants.

Carpenter ants make their colonies in damp wood so a good place to look for them is in moist areas.  Outdoor locations are firewood piles, dead rotting trees and damp wood trim around the house.

Indoors, carpenter ants love to live behind the dishwasher and sink and damp window sills and door frames.
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