Your Tulsa pest control company can help you with any issues you might have. Even though we’re working our way into the Fall, your home can still have issues with ants. We get calls all the time for late year ant problems. In fact, spring is usually the highest time when we have calls for ant problems because ants are coming out of hibernation. But just before they go into hibernation, they often will do one last large forage to find food to last them over the winter months. For this reason, we have many ant calls this time of year. In this article, let’s take a look at ants, their life cycle, and what we can do to protect ourselves from these insects.

EUSOCIAL ANTS AND TULSA PEST CONTROL

Ants are a eusocial insect. That means that they live in a colony and divide their work up into castes. Their caste system includes three different castes. These castes are the worker caste, the soldier caste, and the reproductive caste. The workers of the most numerous of all three. It’s filled with all females that are sterile. These individuals are tasked with all the menial tasks that fill the colonies day to day life. This includes foraging for food, building tunnels in the colony, carrying food back-and-forth, feeding the young, taking out the trash and many other things.

Next, we have the soldier caste. These larger ants are tasked with protecting the colony. When danger comes or a predator strikes, these insects come to life. They often have many types of  defensive weapons, such as large heads, mandibles and glands that produce sticky or acidic fluids. They have many other different things that they can use to protect themselves. in some cases, soldier ants are used to mount an attack on other colonies of insects. This can include other ants or eusocial insects such as termites. Termites are ant’s favorite food for many ant species.

REPRODUCTIVES AND TULSA PEST CONTROL

The third and final cast in the system are reproductives. Reproductives are headed by the queen. The queen is tasked with laying all the eggs for the colony. This is a thankless job that will take up all of the queens waking hours. In fact, most ant queens don’t sleep at all, they only lay eggs for their entire life. In addition to the queen, we also have swarmers. These are winged ants that will leave the colony eventually to create a new colony. They will pair up with other flying ants of the same species, mate, and then create a new colony elsewhere.

While many ants use swarming to multiply the colony, there are other means by which some ant species use to multiply their colony. The most common of them is splintering. In species where splintering is used, the female queen emits a pheromone, that tells all of the worker ants to remain sterile. Since each of the workers are also female, they will do this. If a group of worker ants is separated from the colony for some reason, then those ants will no longer have access to the pheromone that the queen emits. One of the ants that has been away from the queen the longest will become reproductive and start producing her own pheromone. She will become a queen, and start a new colony with the other ants that have been separated from the original colony.

TULSA PEST CONTROL AND ANT SPLINTERING

One of the ants that use a splintering are odorous indoor house ants. These are one of the few colonies that we find inside Oklahoma homes. It’s very important that you use the correct pesticide against these invaders. They create a colony in the house and if you use over-the-counter pesticides, you will inevitably create a bigger problem than when you started. 

Pesticides found in your local hardware store are repellent pesticides. That means that not only do they kill insects on contact, but when they’re sprayed as insect can sense or smell where that pesticide has been sprayed. It will repel them and they’ll they’ll stay away from that point. If you spray repellent sprays with odorous house ants, you can separate a group of workers away from the original colony. This is going to cross splintering and now, instead of one colony, you’re going to have two. This doubles your problem. Because of this it’s important to call your Tulsa pest control company for help whenever you have ants inside your house.

FORAGING ANTS AND TULSA PEST CONTROL

Ants are extensive forager’s. Often, when we see them coming and going, they are searching for food in our homes. They use a system of pheromones in order to communicate to one another where food is and how to get to it. As an ant leaves the colony, it leaves a trail of these pheromones. Once it finds that food, it will grab some of the food and follow the pheromone trail back to the colony. As it does, it leaves another trail on top of the original. When another ant sees the original come back with food, it will follow the same pheromone trail of the original ant. The new ant will leave its own pheromone trail, making the path even stronger. Ants will follow continue to follow this trail, making the trail stronger until the food is completely been brought to the colony.

If you’re having problems with the ants or any other pests, then its time to call in a Tulsa pest control company that is excellent at dealing with ants issues. Here at TermMax Pest Control, we are the best in the business when it comes to dealing with ants or any other pests that you might be dealing with. We service a greater Tulsa area, including Owosso, Jenks, Bixby, Sand Springs, Prattville, Turley, Broken Arrow, Coweta, Claremore, Catoosa, and much more. Call us today for a free estimate. We’re here to help!

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