Ants are a problem that you and your Broken Arrow pest control company can handle if you work together. These colonizing insects are small armies that will march across our yards and fields. These insects will march on your home in an attempt to find food inside your kitchen and pantries. They’ll bite you if you find your way over a fire ant mound. Because of this, it is important that you protect yourself against the onslaught of the armies of these tiny insects. In this article, let’s take a good hard look at ants, their life cycle and what are you and your Broken Arrow pest control company can do to protect your home and yard from these invaders.
COLONY LIFE AND BROKEN ARROW PEST CONTROL
Ant colonies are separate their workforce, down to three different castes. These eusocial insects divide their work out between these three different groups. The first caste of the ant colony are the reproductive’s. At the top of this caste is the queen. She is tasked with laying all the eggs necessary to keep the population of the colony at a premium. In addition, secondary reproductive’s will be there to help her with the work of laying those eggs, and often to reproduce the colony as a whole. Soldiers are the next caste in these ant colonies. These insects are usually larger and have large heads and mandibles in order to defend the colony from attackers, as this is their purpose. In some cases, they will leave the colony and go off on rating parties in order to attack other rival ant colonies.
Lastly, the worker ants are the most numerous of the group. These sterile females are tasked with everything else that’s necessary to keep the colony moving along steadily. They will forage for food, bring food back, feed the young, take out the trash, dig out the colonies galley‘s, and anything else that is necessary to keep the colony moving steadily forward. Contact your broken pest control company for help with ants.
ANT PHEROMONES AND BROKEN ARROW PEST CONTROL
In an effort to communicate with one another, these insects use a set of special hormones, known as pheromones. These are hormones that can be sensed by the ants, and communicate all sorts of different things between the insects. Alarm pheromone can let the workers know to scatter and get away from a possible threat, and the soldiers to run directly into the fight. Worker ants often use pheromones to mark the trails to food sources that they find. This gives the other worker ants the opportunity to follow that trail and find the food and help to forage it and bring it back home.
The reproductive ants also use these hormones in order to signal different things to others in the colony. in many ant species, the workers remain sterile, because they’re in contact with a pheromone that the queen sets off to tell them that they should remain sterile. But if they’re separated from the colony for too long a period of time, one of the workers will become reproductive, and now she will become a queen to start her own new colony. This is a process called splintering. Contact your Broken Arrow pest control company for help when you’re dealing with ants.
DEVIOUS ANTS AND BROKEN ARROW PEST CONTROL
Different ant species use many different tactics and techniques in order to survive. The thief ant is one of the more devious ones. This tiny ant builds its colony on the side of the hill of its nearest rival. This rival is the pharaoh ant. The thief ant will sneak into the colony, and emit a special pheromone the tells the pharaoh ants that he’s just another one of them. As he sneaks past the other ants, he will head straight straight for the brood. Here he’ll find eggs and larva that he’ll pick up and take with him and leave the pharaoh ant colony. He’ll make a beeline back to his own colony, and there they will feed upon these eggs and larva. Hence the name of the thief ant.
Amazon ants are also spectacular in their deviousness. These ants are incapable of producing workers. They can’t forage for food or care for their own young. So in order to find workers they will go on a raiding party to a arrival ant colony. When they enter, they will steal some of the eggs and larva, and bring them back to their own colony. Here they will feed on some of them, but many of them they’ll apply their own pheromone to. This will convince these adolescent ants that they are now a part of the Amazon ant colony. They’ll grow up and become workers and work for the Amazon ants as their slaves. They’re so brainwashed that even if they see ants from their original colony, they will attack them and defend the Amazon ant colony. Contact your Broken Arrow pest control company for help with ants.
ELIMINATING ANTS
Most people, when they see ants in her home , the first thing that they will do is get a can of their favorite pesticide and apply it generously. This is a mistake. First of all, some of these ants will use splintering in order to multiply the colony. So if you spray a bunch of the spray and separate a group of workers from the original colony, you’ve created a second colony and now you have twice as much of a problem. Two queens producing twice as many eggs producing twice as many ants. That’s a lot of mouthes to feed.
If you’re having an issue with ants or any other pests, then its time to call your Broken Arrow pest control company. Here at TermMax pest control, we are the best in the business, when it comes to dealing with ants or any other pests. We service the greater Tulsa area, including Broken Arrow, Sand Springs, Sapulpa, Prattville, Claremore, Catoosa, Coweta, Bixby, Jenks, Owasso, Turley, and so much more. Call today for a free estimate. We’re here to help!