Love them or loathe them, the carpenter ant is a particularly fascinating ant.
Labelled as “one-to-watch” here in Metro Vancouver, the carpenter ant is a menace for timber frame buildings and notoriously hard to eliminate.
You might have come across them before under unfortunate circumstances, or you may have heard a story of a person who’s house needed major renovation after these crafty insects got their teeth in the structural beams. Yikes! (Yeah, that happens).
Either way, today we’ll give you some cool facts about carpenter ants.
Fact #1 – Carpenter ants are some of the largest ants in North America
Workers can measure up to 1/2 to 5/8 inch in length, with some species reaching up to 1 inch in length. The Queen is larger, measuring up to 1 inch in some cases. They have powerful mandibles that allow them to bite and chew through wood and other materials.
Thicker and darker than your pavement ant (some with a red thorax).. keep your eyes peeled!
Intrigued? Read this – How To Identify Carpenter Ants
#2 – Carpenter ants don’t actually eat wood.
It’s interesting to note that unlike termites, carpenter ants don’t actually eat the wood as they’re not able to digest cellulose; instead they prefer dead insects, honeydew from aphids, plant secretions, and even rotting fruit.
Carpenter ants bore through wood, excavating away to form a sawdust-like residue, which we call “frass”. These tunnels are carved out in timber framing in order to build carpenter ant colonies.
#3 – The queen carpenter ant can live up to 25 years
Making her one of the longest-lived insects in the world!!
Carpenter ant queens are extraordinarily long-lived for insects. A single queen can live up to 25 years! The queen ant is the largest ant in the colony, responsible for laying eggs and producing tiny workers. She rears the workers with her salivary glands until they are strong enough to forage for food and maintain the nest.
Learn more about the carpenter ant queen
#4 – They are stronger than a bodybuilder (proportionally speaking)
Move over Arnie! Carpenter ants are considered to be some of the strongest insects in the world relative to their size.
These ants are capable of carrying objects that weigh up to 50 times their body weight. The strength of Carpenter ants is due to their muscle mass and the structural design of their bodies. Their muscles are particularly large and powerful, and their exoskeletons are made of a tough, rigid material that allows them to generate more force than many other insects.
#5 – Carpenter ants make for a tasty snack
Many birds and ants rely on them as a primary source of food, and they are also an important dietary component for bears. During the ant season, which lasts from mid-June to mid- to late July when berries start to ripen, bears mainly consume ants and ant larvae. They look for ants in old logs and under stones. Grizzly bears in the Prince George area also consume ants in late summer when fresh plants become scarce and berries are unavailable.
#6 – When it’s time to mate, they fly.
Flying ants. I bet you’ve seen them before. Well the swarm all happens pretty fast.
On this special day (flying ant day) sometime in the early summer, we’ll be treated to a spectacle of passionate flying ants leaving the nest in a swarm.
The male and female reproductive winged ants take off to the skies and mate. Soon after the swarm, the male swarming ants’ life role comes to an end. The males drop to the ground and die. For the female swarmers however, their new life has just begun. Their wings drop off and they head out for an overland adventure in search of a new location to start their own colony. This epic event is called the ‘nuptial flight’.
Read about flying ants in the Vancouver region.
#7 – Colonies can be gigantic
Well established nests can reach up to 100,000 with multiple parent and satellite colonies, which can take three to six years to fully develop.
A single carpenter ant queen will lay 70,000 eggs in that time. No wonder.. Yikes!
Parent nests must maintain a good level of moisture for the queen’s eggs to survive. A parent (or primary) nest can have many satellite nests. Satellite nests do not contain eggs and therefore do not require moisture. This enables carpenter ant colonies to have multiple satellite nests within an individual structure.
The verdict?
We hope you learned a thing or two about carpenter ants. If you are interested in learning more, check out this post about locating a carpenter ant nest.
Definitely one to watch out for this spring.
For professional assistance with controlling carpenter ants please call, or chat with a pest expert. Typically the first thing we’ll do is carry out an inspection to confirm the extent of the issue and then advise you on treatment options.