carpenter ants Archives - Page 2 of 3 - Charles Buell Consulting LLC

February 20, 2016 by Charles Buell

A Window on the World

Carpenter Ants are pretty amazing insects.

To appreciate them it is best to think of them “outside” of our homes. For some reason Carpenter Ants cannot distinguish between the wood in our homes and the wood in the woods.

When hiking it the Northwest it is very common to come across trees that have fallen across the trail and the section of tree that crosses the trail is cut away to maintain the trail. Carpenter Ants infest can infest these downed trees—and perhaps they were in it to begin with and its falling was related to the damage they had created.

Regardless, the cut off tree sometimes exposes the tunneling done by the ants and sometimes become the “windows” where the sawdust from their mining gets dumped to the ground below.

In this first picture, I find the shapes created by the Carpenter ants very reminiscent of the shapes used in the art of the peoples that inhabited the Northwest prior to the Europeans.

To me there are often parallels between nature and human art.

When I took this picture the ants were busy elsewhere or had abandoned the log. In this next picture, one can clearly see that the Carpenter Ants (Camponotus Modoc) are indeed home and doing what they do best.

They have quite a window on the world.

By Charles Buell, Real Estate Inspections in Seattle

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January 4, 2014 by Charles Buell

Styrofoam and Carpenter Ants

In the NW, the Home Inspector, assuming they are a Licensed Structural Pest Inspector, had best be on the lookout for ants wandering around the exterior of the building–especially Carpenter Ants. On a recent inspection of a building with EIFS siding (Synthetic Stucco), I noticed Carpenter Ants trailing along the sidewalk. While I could discuss the errors in the EIFS installation, and the fact that the drip screed is not visible at the bottom, this post while possibly related to this omission is about Carpenter Ants. Following the trail I found where they were coming and going from the building at a hole under some door trim. Note the Carpenter Ant at the center of the picture.

Can you find the Carpenter Ant at the center of the picture?

This is almost never going to be a good thing and I made a mental note to make sure I checked this area closely both at the interior of the building and in the crawl space. Nothing was apparent at the interior, but when I got to the area in the crawl space that was under this door this is what I found.

Piles of Carpenter Ant Frass–almost entirely made up of foam insulation from the EIFS siding.

This is a really good example of how these ants don’t eat the wood–they merely mine it to create places to store their eggs and have ant parties. If you look closely at this “frass” you can see a dead Carpenter Ant, some wood “sawdust,” little beads of foam and–of course–cobwebs. Carpenter Ants are very opportunistic and will tunnel in wood or foam. Foam is really easy to mine–so why wouldn’ they?

If you are having a property inspected in the NW–make sure that the inspector is a Licensed Structural Pest Inspector–otherwise, they might not even know that the ants they didn’t even notice were Carpenter Ants and that even if they had noticed them they would not be allowed (by state law) to say what they were. You might then be looking at either another inspection–or risk finding out later about them–after much more damage had been done.

By Charles Buell, Real Estate Inspections in Seattle

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December 13, 2013 by Charles Buell

Camponotus Modoc & Camponotus Vicinus & Thatching Ants in the Northwest

Carpenter Ants are very common in the NW. These ants belong to the largest genus (Camponotus) in the Family Formicidae.

Worldwide there are over 1000 species of Carpenter Ants–not all are wood destroying but when they are, they can do a lot of damage to wood structures. In North America there are about 20 species. In the NW we have mainly two of concern: C. Modoc and C. Vicinus. The “C” stands for Camponotus–the genus.

C. Modoc is pretty easy to recognize–these ants are pretty much all black and they are often bigger than any other kind of ant you are likely to find in the NW–especially in healthy colonies. Seeing these ants hanging out around your yard or in your home is always reason for concern and a Licensed Structural Pest Inspector should be consulted. It is a really good idea to capture a specimen or two in a zip-lock bag to show the inspector when they arrive.

C. Vicinus ants are a little more difficult to distinguish because they can vary from partially red and mostly black to mostly red and some black. This coloration makes it easy to confuse them with Thatching Ants. Thatching ants can be a nuisance but are generally considered beneficial in the environment. These ants rarely invade homes but have been known to nest in wall cavities and other hollow structures of homes.

Because Thatching Ants are not usually a concern in homes, when you see large ants streaming in and out of a home it is easy to think that they might be C. Vicinus, Carpenter Ants. All species of Carpenter ants have a smooth “back” or dorsum–no dents or indentations that would indicate that it is some other kind of ant. Seeing the notch on the dorsum of an ant requires some magnification–and difficult to determine with the naked eye.

Here is a picture of some Thatching Ants that were found in a porch structure—-there were hundreds of them streaming in and out of the opening under the floor boards. Pretty easy to think they might be Carpenter Ants.

If you look close though, at the back of the ant from the side, you can see clearly that the back is not smooth—-it has a notch–consistent with being a Thatching Ant and not a Carpenter Ant.

This distinction makes a huge difference in protocols for treatment–including whether any treatment is necessary at all.

By Charles Buell, Real Estate Inspections in Seattle

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