Ants are a vicious, springtime, pest that your Broken Arrow Pest control company can help you eliminate. These colonizing insects are fighting a massive war underneath our feet. Our yards are filled with warring factions dividing and conquering up our grassy yards. They will march into our homes and our businesses, in an attempt to find food, and bring it back to their colony. Keeping ants away is very important. So in this article, let us take a good hard look at ants, their lifecycle, and what you and your Broken Arrow pest control company can do to protect your home or business from these insects.
ANT LIFECYCLE AND BROKEN ARROW PEST CONTROL
Ants use a complete metamorphosis to develop. They start with the queen. This single insect will lay all the eggs for the colony. Each time she lays an egg, the workers will place that egg in a safe place until it grows to full adulthood. As the egg hatches, the larva will emerge. The larva is the worm form of the ant. These larva are very important for the survival of the colony because of the anatomy of the adult ant. Ants have three body parts. The head, the thorax and the abdomen. These body parts are separated by an extremely thin waist. Because the stomach and digestive system are contained in the abdomen, ants can only consume liquid foods. Solid food just can’t make it through all of these narrow waists.
So the ants will bring solid foods to the larva and feed it to them. The larva will consume what they need and then regurgitate what they don’t. This liquid food is now fair game for the workers to feed them selves. Once the larva grows to a certain stage, it will need to move to its next stage, the pupa. This is the cocoon stage of development for the ant. It will build a cocoon around itself and then develop into the adult. Once the cocoon opens, the adult will emerge and it will take its place in the colony as it’s needed. Contact your Broken Arrow pest control company for more information about these interesting insects.
COLONY LIFE AND BROKEN ARROW PEST CONTROL
As stated before, the queen is at the top of the food chain when it comes to the colony. Below her are a number of workers. In the ant colonies, all the workers are sterile females. These insects will work to do all the menial jobs of the colony. This includes tending to the young, forging for food, building the tunnels of the nest, taking out the trash and many other different things. In addition to the workers, there are also soldiers. These insects are tasked with protecting the colony if it’s ever under attack. In addition, many species will run raiding parties on other in colonies. The soldier ants will lead the fray.
While the queen ant will take care of all of the major reproduction for the population of the colony, the colony itself will seek to reproduce itself as well. There are a number of ways you can do this. One way is by using Swarmers. These are winged ants to fly out at a certain time of year and pair up with other with ants of the same species. They will mate in mid air, and then land, losing their wings and start a colony there.
SPLINTERING ANT COLONIES
Another way to do it is by splintering. In the colonies that splinter, the queen will emit a pheromone that tells all of the sterile, female workers to remain sterile. If they’re away from this pheromone for any length of time, they will stop being sterile, and start becoming a queen themselves. So as the workers go and come from the colony, they will stay sterile, because they have a constant attachment to this pheromone. But if a group of workers gets separated from the colony for an extended period of time, one of those females will become a new queen and another colony will begin. Contact your Broken Arrow pest control company for help.
SLAVE DRIVING ANTS, AND BROKEN ARROW PEST CONTROL
Foramicinae ants are a special kind of ant that actually makes slaves of other ants. These ants have no workers. They couldn’t maintain their young if they wanted to. What they do is to form a raiding party upon a rival ant species in the area. When they go into the colony, they will emit a pheromone that scares off all of the soldier ants. They make their way down to the egg and larva section and collect a bunch of these eggs and larva‘s. These ants will bring them back to their colony and feed on some of them but some of them they will bring the full fruition. in the process of rearing them, they will emit a pheromone, that convinces, these answer that they’re a part of the Foramicinae colony. Even if these ants find their way back to the colony that they originally came from, they will be aggressive with a defending the Foramicinae old colony viciously.
FARMING ANTS
Other ants will actually use farming to produce food. This symbiotic relationship is best known in the leaf cutter ants. These ants will go and cut pieces of leaves off and bring them back to the colony. Deep down inside the colony, they have a fungus that they will feed this piece of plant to. The fungus will produce a sweet, sticky substance that they can eat. The symbiotic relationship protects the fungus and gives the ants the food that they need.
If you’re having an issue with ants or, any other pest control problems, then it is time to contact your Broken Arrow pest control company for help. Here at TermMax pest control, we are the best in the business when you’re dealing with ants or any other pests. We service the greater Tulsa area, including Broken Arrow, Sand Springs, Sapulpa, Prattville, Coweta, Claremore, Catoosa, Bixby, Jenks, Owasso, Turley, and so much more. Call today for a free estimate. We’re here to help!
