How To Treat A Carpenter Ant Nest

 

We’ve learned a lot about carpenter ants already, now you’re probably wondering what’s the best way to go about eliminating the problem! Let’s look at some best practises for treating a nest for effective remediation.

Remember, carpenter ants are tricky to control, so if you’re unsure what to do give us a call and one our ant control technicians will help you out.

Live Carpenter Ant Treatment

Watch our technician in action carrying out a carpenter ant treatment on a home

Treating The Nest

Once you’ve located the nest, it’s then time to get to work with some treatment methods.

Ant baits are a popular way to deal with many species of ants. Combining an attractive food source with a slow-acting poison, these baits let the ants do the work for you, carrying the food back to the nest and killing the entire colony. But good luck getting a carpenter ant to fall for this trick.

Carpenter ants respond poorly to bait. And worse, carpenter ants are known to be quite finicky in their dietary preferences. (That’s how you can tell that they are from Vancouver.) Their food preferences change throughout the year according to the shifting needs of the colony. So bait that works one day may not work the next. Generally, it’s very difficult to destroy a carpenter ant nest using bait.

This leaves the option of a pesticide spray, aerosol or dust application. But this needs to be done right to be effective. It’s no good simply spraying your whole house with repellent insecticides. The ants will know, and simply avoid the sprayed areas. Plus, there’s a possibility that by making the ants feel attacked, you may just encourage them to scatter, as well as go into reproductive overdrive. The queen will start to lay more eggs to replace the workers you have killed, and the problem may well end up being worse.

Using AntOut or other solutions

You might have tried this DIY solution at home. Spraying AntOut on your paths to cut off their foraging routes, is not a sustainable solutions. The ants will eventually find a different route to your home. 

Any spray sold over-the-counter at a hardware store is likely to kill adult ants on contact. But when you’re dealing with a queen that can lay 70,000 eggs, killing dozens or even hundreds of adult foragers isn’t going to harm the colony at all.

You need to apply a pesticide directly to the nest to kill the queen and the brood, the young ants that act as the digestive system of the entire nest. Often, this means injecting pesticides directly into the wood that the ants are nesting in. And it needs to be the right kind of pesticide. Non- repellent borates work best since the ants can’t detect their presence.

Chewing their way in

Carpenter ants burrow their way through the damaged wood, and eventually chew through newer, drier wood to find a suitable place to nest.

In the process on tunnelling they weaken the wood structure and persistence over time could cause significant damage eventually requiring repairs that will be very expensive. In the absolute worst-case scenarios, the building could collapse from the damage.

Carpenter ants will establish satellite nests and not all nests require damp wood. Foam insulation is easy for a carpenter ant to chew through and construct it’s maze of tunnels.

For home renovations, whats the best way to protect against them?

Well, one important element here is that many Vancouver homes contain rigid insulation. What’s really popular in new home construction and renovations is spray foam insulation, or rigid insulation.

It’s great because it keeps the moisture out really well. It keeps your heating bills down, but it creates a wonderful environment for carpenter arts to thrive in. And in turn it creates a very challenging environment for pest control companies to treat them once they get inside the walls.

What we recommend

If you want to avoid having to hire a carpenter ant control company to come in and tear down your walls, it’s a smart idea, when you’re doing renovations to make sure that there’s no nests before you insulate. It’s also a good idea treat the wood with a wood preservative before you add rigid insulation or expanding foam insulation.

How often do we have to treat the foam, replace the foam so we know we’re keeping them out?

Again, that’s the challenging thing once it’s in there.. as it’s usually good for the life of the house. In this climate that we live in, we estimate that in the coming years we’re going to have more and more challenging carpenter ant treatments, where it doesn’t just involve drilling some small holes and injecting the wall voids. It’s going to involve some secondary renovations just to treat the issue.

Using Fumigation to treat a carpenter ant nest 

Fumigation (our high powered aerosol device) may be required in some instances when the carpenter ant infestation is particularly bad. Fumigation is the process of using vaporized pesticide (a fumigant) to target and eliminate a particular pest inside from the structure of a building. Carpenter Ants and Termites are two pests that are tricky to eliminate and might require fumigation to fully get rid of.

Fumigation is only applied into wall and ceiling voids and never the open air of the inside of a home or building. Therefore vacating, though not required, it is sometimes recommended occupants in certain homes keep out of rooms adjacent to where the application is being completed. Fumigants can find the way into the home through unsealed baseboards, old window frames and other cracks. Our technicians will advise on additional preparation steps required ahead of time.

Best Way To Kill Carpenter Ants In House

If carpenter ants are inside, you need to think beyond what you can see.

The real target is the nest, not the ants walking across your counter.

Here’s what works:

• Track their movement
  Follow trails back to where they disappear. That usually leads you closer to the nest
• Use dust or foam in wall voids
  These products spread through galleries where ants are hiding
• Apply bait if the nest is hard to reach
  Workers carry it back and share it with the colony
• Fix moisture issues
  Damp wood is what drew them in to begin with

Quick sprays might knock down a few ants, but unless the nest is hit, they’ll keep showing up like nothing happened.

One Of The Toughest Ants

Carpenter ants are known to be one of the toughest ant species to deal with. Their biology is the main factor in this. They are most active at night, and they carve out their nests inside wood, making them difficult to locate. Also, they tend to have multiple nests. So even if you find and destroy an entire nest of carpenter ants, that doesn’t mean you’ve killed the colony. A single carpenter ant queen can live for 15 years or more and will lay 70,000 eggs in that time. The battle against carpenter ants can often turn into a grinding war of attrition.

Westside Pro Tip

If you’re hearing faint rustling in your walls at night, pay attention.

Carpenter ants are active after dark, and large nests can actually make noise as they move through wood.

Grab a flashlight and check the same area outside. Look for trails climbing siding, wires, or tree branches touching your home.

That outside trail often leads you straight to the main nest or a satellite colony. Find that, and you’re no longer guessing.

The verdict?

You will have carpenter ants issues where there’s moisture. Most problems are caused by leaks, humidity issues, and poor maintenance. Maybe you had a leak five, ten years ago, which created some wood rot, and there’s still going to be some remaining moisture.

Still, there’s a lot you can do to either prevent yourself from getting this problem in the first place. 

To fully get rid of the problem, you need to get to the nest. In most cases, you’re going to probably need a professional to help with it, but otherwise you’re really going to want to start drilling and injecting into the wall voids try to figure out where the parent nest is. Good detection and identification is key.

Treating a carpenter ant nest requires specialized tools and special skills. That’s why it’s a job that’s often best left to professionals. Westside Pest Control has expert technicians with years of experience in dealing with these troublesome creatures. Give us a call today and see how we can help with your Vancouver carpenter ant problem.

FAQs

Does spraying for carpenter ants actually work?

Spraying can kill the ants you see, but it rarely solves the full problem. Carpenter ants live in hidden galleries inside wood, and sprays don’t always reach those areas. In some cases, spraying can even cause the colony to split into smaller groups, making things harder to control. Targeted treatments inside the nest are far more effective.

What are other carpenter ant treatment methods?

Besides dusts and foams, baits can be useful when nests are hidden or hard to access. Some homeowners also use borate wood treatments to protect exposed wood from future activity. Outdoor treatments around the foundation can help reduce incoming ants. The best approach often combines a few methods based on where the colony is located.

How do I know if the carpenter ant nest is gone?

Activity is your biggest clue. You should see a steady drop in ant sightings within a few days to a couple of weeks after proper treatment. No more rustling sounds, no fresh frass, and no active trails are all good signs. If ants keep showing up in the same area, there’s likely another nest nearby that still needs attention.