Common Pests

Ants

As you've probably noticed, they're even workaholics at a picnic.

Ants are very community minded citizens of the insect world. They have kings, queens, and immature stages back in the nest. The ones you usually find foraging through your kitchen, your garden and around your back door are the workers and maybe some soldiers.

Some ants have painful stings but mainly they are pests because so many of them turn up uninvited to your home.

The large bull ants, trigger ants, sugar ants, meat ants and even the greenhead ants are of minor consequence if you're not a keen gardener or you haven't been stung. It's the small black and brown ants (up to about 5mm long) that develop large, hard to find colonies that are of the most concern.

They can undermine pavers and the root zone of plants, they can damage and short circuit electrical components enough to cause fires, they can transfer viral, fungal and bacterial plant diseases while removing the sweet secretions from aphids, bugs and scale insects.

If it can possibly considered to be food, there is a species of ant that will want to take whatever it is back to their nest. Although ants have comparatively powerful jaws and they do bite, the pain comes from the hypodermic sting or from venom sprayed from the tip of the abdomen over the area bitten. Large painful welts are almost instantaneous and allergic reactions have caused deaths.

Pesticidal destruction of nests should be the main aim. It is almost impossible to prevent foraging ants entering a building and although you might make a valiant attempt to reduce available food and liquid, you will not eliminate ants this way.

When nests cannot be found, judicial sprays along the trailways and dusts puffed into crevices are the next options.