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Movie - Black Carpenter Ants
I used to think my carpenter ants might like some of my bologna
sandwiches from lunch, but I couldn’t get as many takers at
lunchtime as I got early in the morning. That’s because carpenter
ants are mostly night owls, foraging from dusk until dawn. Black
carpenter ants have pretty good vision for ants, using that vision
to help them take shortcuts from their house to food in the early
morning and when the moon is out.
Ant Speak: Decoded
Black carpenter ants tending aphids on poplar. - © Dick Walton
homeowners to bigger problems: damp and rotting wood from a
leak or drip or other pests living in that wood. When wood
becomes soaked through, carpenter ants can easily use their
jaws to snap away and build their tunnels. If homeowners keep
their wood dry, carpenter ants will usually stick to the trees. That
is, unless the homeowners have pests like termites or wood
beetles snacking away inside their walls.
Sometimes black carpenter ants will happen upon such a
treasure trove of food and set up camp right next to their grocery
store. Can you blame them? Haven’t you ever dreamed of living
next to your favorite doughnut shop or fried chicken restaurant?
Instead of attacking carpenter ants for living in the walls, use
them as helpful guides to identify the real problem.
When they aren’t following their sisters’ chemical trails, they
remember landmarks like pebbles and sticks to help them find
their way home. These landmarks save time for black carpenter
ants, who can forage up to 100 yards from their nest. That’s the
human equivalent of walking more than 11 miles for food. On new
moon nights when it is totally dark, black carpenter ants take no
shortcuts and feel their way through the night, keeping their
bodies close to structures.
When carpenter ants find food, they run back to the nest, laying a
chemical trail behind them. Once inside the nest, they do an “Ifound-something-awesome”
dance to get their sisters awake and
excited enough to follow them. The hungrier the ants, the more
vigorous the dance. The excited sisters then rush out of the nest
in search of the chemical trail that leads them to the food.
Carpenter ants, like many other ant species, have little built-in
knapsacks called crops inside their bodies. They stuff these crops
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