Have you been seeing winged ants crawling on your exterior walls, or worse, on your interior windows? Do you get them every year? For most of us, the sighting of winged ants is only a minor curiosity and a slight inconvenience. But, they are actually a warning sign of something much more disturbing that you can't see.
Flying ants are not a species of ants, but rather, a caste of ant. When an ant colony matures, the queen will begin to produce male and female, winged reproductive. The job of the reproductive is to leave the nest, find a mate, and locate a suitable place to establish a new nest.
Here are some things you should know about this process:
- The flying ants we notice most often are carpenter ant swarmers. We notice them because carpenter ants are the largest ant species we find invading our home. And flying ants are much larger than other castes in the colony, which makes this contrast even more noticeable.
- Winged reproductives do not travel far from the nest that spawns them. If you're finding these insects crawling around on, or inside, your home, you should know that a mature nest is close by.
- When you see flying ants crawling on the inside of your windows, this is an almost sure sign of a current ant infestation within your home. Worse still, it is evidence that a mature nest is trying to replicate itself.
- If the swarmers you are seeing are carpenter ant swarmers, this is a warning sign you should never shrug off. If left untreated, carpenter ants can do significant damage to the structure of a home by tunneling through wood and creating galleries.
Ant season is fast approaching. Be on the lookout for swarmers, and learn how to properly identify carpenter ant swarmers when you see them. They will usually be black or a mixture of black and red hues and they will be around ¾ of an inch to an inch in length.
If you live in New York state, and swarmers begin to appear, you can trust Parkway Pest Services to find and root out the problem. Our QualityPro certified team has the education, experience, and state-of-the-art equipment to deal with ant infestations of any size. We've been protecting homes and businesses in New York since 1932. That is a long time to not only learn how to do it right but how to do in an efficient way that saves our customers money. We are so confident that our trained and certified technicians will fix your problem, we guarantee it with one of the most comprehensive customer satisfaction guarantees in the business.
Flying ants are a warning sign. Be sure to read the sign and keep your home safe from insect damage by partnering with Parkway Pest Services.