Small ants that appear in the house, at first glance, may seem very harmless. But in fact, these insects are capable of multiplying incredibly quickly and if you miss time, they will fill all the rooms. Tiny pests will be found in the bathroom, in table drawers, but the most unpleasant thing will be their presence in food. And if you notice that these insects come across your eyes more and more often every day, then this means only one thing - you need to immediately take steps to eliminate them.
What types of small ants can be found in houses
Ants that live in human homes are most often small in size, which makes it very difficult to examine and determine their belonging to any species. The bulk of “dangerous neighbors” for humans are made up of only a few “domestic” varieties.
We turn to professionals
Considering the possible harm that insects can cause to humans, you should not delay making a decision. The staff will arrive, assess the condition of the premises, explain why small ants appeared in the apartment and tell you how to get rid of the parasites in a short time. The use of cold and hot fog generators allows you to achieve the desired concentration of insecticide and treat hard-to-reach places. The impact occurs not only at the time of disinfestation, but also 2 weeks after the work.
How small ants can be dangerous in the house
The very fact of insects living in the house is unpleasant for many. But, besides this, there are many more reasons why you should get rid of such neighbors:
- many domestic ants are omnivores, and therefore can contaminate any food that is freely available;
- in the process of life, these insects leave a large amount of waste, which may ultimately end up on the kitchen shelf with food or in bags of cereals;
- Ants can carry a huge number of different infections on their paws.
Description and features of existence
Small red ants, or as they are also called apartment or pharaoh ants, have a small body, the size of which does not exceed 2 mm. Their covers are colored light brown or red, sometimes the shade can be close to red. They live in nests and always move in large groups.
Each nest can have several queens. They are distinguished by their larger body sizes. The remaining individuals in the anthill serve as workers. It is the latter who scurry around your kitchen and other rooms in search of food and constantly catch your eye.
Colonies of small red ants are quite numerous and one can number about 300-400 thousand workers.
Where do small ants come from in apartments and houses?
There can be a huge number of reasons for the appearance of such “cohabitants”, but the main factors are:
- insufficient cleanliness in the room;
- free access to food;
- lack of protective nets on windows and ventilation openings.
Ants can also be brought inside a home randomly, along with clothes, furniture, food and other things.
The main reason for the appearance of ants in multi-storey buildings is usually their permanent residence in basements, garbage chutes or neighboring apartments.
Lifestyle and habitat
Due to the large number of species, the life of ants influences biogenesis. By creating anthills, they actively loosen the soil, saturating the roots of plants with air and moisture. Inside houses there is a warm and humid atmosphere in which bacteria actively multiply, processing waste products and excrement. Thus, insects help saturate the soil with nutrients.
The ant is a social insect, the structure of their communities is similar to that of humans, characterized by a clear structure in which the distribution of roles plays a vital role. Some species, in addition to the three main castes, have an additional one - soldiers, they serve as protectors of the anthill, for this the workers provide them with food.
A special variety of insects, fire ants , subjugate representatives of weaker families and parasitize at their expense. In any case, the anthill is a single organism, without which individual individuals cannot survive.
Ants have settled across all continents and climatic zones with the exception of deserts, Antarctica and the cold islands of the Atlantic and Arctic oceans. Each species has its own habitat, but ants are able to move even between countries and continents, forming new colonies where they were not previously settled.
At the same time, stronger varieties are able to displace weaker ones from their usual places. Life in a warm climate allows insects to reach impressive sizes for the family and continue their life activities year-round; ants in temperate and cold zones are much smaller and hibernate in the winter.
Most species organize their homes in the form of anthills; these can be earthen dwellings, settlements in tree bark or rotten stumps; special species are able to capture bird nests and settle in them.
How to get rid of small ants in houses and apartments
It is necessary to start fighting ants immediately after the first individuals appear. To destroy pests, you can use special chemicals, traps or folk remedies.
Chemicals
Chemicals almost always give very good results, but they must be used indoors very carefully. The most convenient and popular insecticides for controlling house ants are:
- gel Raptor;
- aerosols Kombat and Varan;
- crayons Mashenka and Clean House;
- Karbofos and Grom-2 powders.
Folk remedies
Many people are against chemicals and try to use safer and more natural products. The most effective folk methods of expelling ants are:
- laying out dried chamomile flowers;
- baits made from corn flour or ground rice;
- Sprinkling salt on surfaces on which insects move;
- laying out eggshells;
- rubbing with lemon juice or vinegar.
Traps
You can make such devices yourself or purchase ready-made ones. The simplest and most effective homemade traps are:
- saucer with sweet syrup;
- cardboard or paper strips smeared with honey or thick jam;
- dish sponge soaked in honey or jam.
As for ready-made traps, the Raptor and Combat brands are popular among them.
Ants
Home Articles Ants
Ants are insects that live in families (colonies) in which there is a clear distribution of responsibilities. More than 14 thousand species are known, mostly tropical; some of them are related to humans. The most common synanthropic species is the cosmopolitan, found all over the world, the red house ant, also known as the pharaoh ant (Monomorium pharaonis).
In temperate climates, red ants live in warm houses and apartments, greenhouses, baths, shops, warehouses and enterprises, most often where food is stored or produced. They sometimes nest in the open air, but usually inhabit ready-made voids indoors near sources of heat and moisture: under the floor, tiles and baseboards, in cracks and crevices, inside walls.
Occupancy of buildings is active; Red ants crawl along communication pipes, ventilation systems, cracks, and in the summer along external walls. The whole family can move; when the family grows, a queen with a small number of workers and immature ants “springs off” from it, they build their nest and form a new colony. Sometimes ants are brought into a room with containers, food, and furniture.
A colony may consist of one queen and several hundred worker ants (sterile queens), or hundreds of queens and a million workers; Nests connected by passages can be placed throughout the building. If the entire colony is not destroyed, it will quickly recover and re-infect all neighboring premises.
Workers of red ants are wingless yellow-brown, 2 mm long, winged dark brown males are 3 mm long. Winged females, also known as queens or queens, are darker than workers and reach 4 mm in length. In temperate climates, sexual individuals do not fly; mating occurs in the nest; fertilized females shed their wings.
Ants of this species breed all year round; they have a full development cycle: egg, larva, pupa, adult. Worker ants go through the entire cycle in 36 days, males and females in 44 days; Workers live on average 8 weeks, males - 2-3 weeks. The lifespan of a female pharaoh ant is about a year; she lays about 500 eggs over her entire life.
The optimal temperature for life is 28…32°C and relative humidity 80%; at temperatures below 18°C, activity decreases, at 0...7°C the ants die. The maximum size of the colony is in July-October, at which time the ants settle not only throughout the building, but also into neighboring houses.
Pharaoh ants are predominantly nocturnal; They are polyphagous (omnivores), but prefer carbohydrate and protein foods. Approximately 10% of worker ants are forager ants; they find and bring food to the anthill for the entire colony. The rest of the family live in secret; sexual individuals reproduce, workers dig tunnels and care for offspring.
Crawling through sewage, ants transfer eggs of worms, causative agents of dysentery, typhoid fever, plague and polio, onto food products. In hospitals, ants can penetrate under dressings, spoil sterile material, and infect patients with streptococcus, staphylococcus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria. Ants can live 3-5 days without food and water.
Prevention
To prevent the infestation of premises, especially in high-rise apartment buildings, by red house ants, you must:
- block access by sealing all holes in the floor and walls;
- store products in clean, tightly closed containers;
- maintain cleanliness, carefully remove all food debris;
- Wash dirty dishes and take out trash in a timely manner, keep the trash can closed.
Before extermination, it is necessary, through inspection and observation, to identify the “paths” along which foraging ants usually move. Having placed traps with non-poisoned food bait on them, a day later the population size is calculated, then they begin disinfestation.
Ways to fight
Lures. To exterminate ants, it is necessary to destroy the entire colony, but it is very difficult to find secluded nests. Therefore, poisoned food baits are usually used, and it is necessary to block access to any other food. Long-term use of baits will lead to the fact that foraging ants will bring them into the crop into the anthill and gradually all members of the colony, including the queen and the brood, will be poisoned.
In small rooms, place small containers with meat or sweet bait based on borax or boric acid. The greatest effect is achieved by using insecticidal bait stations in the form of containers and disks, gels and pastes in tubes or syringes, and granules.
The active ingredients in baits are insecticides:
- organophosphorus – diazinon, chlorpyrifos, fenthion;
- pyrethroids – cypermethrin, sumithrin, deltamethrin;
- neonicotinoids – acetamiprid, imidacloprid, thiamethoxam;
- phenylpyrazoles – fipronil;
- amidohydrazones – hydromethylnon;
- insect growth regulators – fenoxycarb, methoprene, pyriproxyfen;
- biological insecticide aversectin C;
- borax, boric acid.
To enhance activity, mixtures of two insecticides with different mechanisms of action are often used, for example, neonicotinoid and fipronil, FOS and pyrethroid, hydromethylnon and boric acid. Attractants are added to increase attractiveness, and glycerin and stabilizers are added for better preservation.
Effective ant baits
Insectogel NEO
Absolut Super ant bait 200 g
Baits based on insect growth regulators provide slow but reliable results. They gradually cause sterilization of the uterus and destroy all offspring, adult workers die from “old age”, and the uterus from hunger.
Given the presence of several nests in a colony of pharaoh ants, bait stations are placed mainly on the “paths” of working ants throughout the room. Gels or granules are applied in doses along the path of movement and places of possible shelter (cracks, crevices). It is necessary that workers throughout the building are fed with bait; for this purpose, regular inspections are carried out, and the bait is promptly added or replaced with fresh bait.
Baits are used simultaneously in all infected premises from three months to a year, depending on the occupancy. A good effect is obtained by alternating them with local treatments with contact preparations. In the warm season, bait should also be placed outside the building in places where ants appear. Dusts and pencils . The advantage of dusts over liquid preparations is that insects bring it on the surface of the body to the nest and infect other individuals. Pencils work the same way, but they can also be applied to vertical surfaces. Treat ant trails and places of accumulation with a consumption of 2 g/m2; processing is carried out with open windows, food removed, and without the presence of people. In dusts and pencils (crayons), insecticides of contact and intestinal action and their combinations are used:
- organophosphorus – fenthion;
- pyrethroids – cypermethrin, deltamethrin, esfenvalerate (Vigilant Guardian – CHALK);
- phenylpyrazoles – fipronil;
- boric acid.
3-6 hours after treatment, wet cleaning of exposed surfaces with a soap and soda solution is carried out. In places inaccessible to children and animals, in places of possible nesting (cracks, cracks, etc.), the dust is left until the end of its validity period.
Surface treatment. Spraying aqueous solutions, emulsions or suspensions of insecticides on the movement paths or concentrations of worker ants is used only in case of severe infection. It gives a quick effect, but does not destroy the entire colony; dead worker ants are replaced by others and appear after the end of the residual effect of the drug.
When spraying, the contact action of preparations is used based on:
- organophosphorus compounds – malathion, chlorpyrifos;
- pyrethroids – cypermethrin (Cypermethrin);
- neonicotinoids – acetamiprid (Blockade Anticlop);
- phenylpyrazoles - fipronil (Flip).
It is necessary to ventilate the room, enter it and wash off the product from surfaces in accordance with the instructions for the specific drug. Treatment in children's organizations and food facilities is carried out on weekends or sanitary days.
The best results can be obtained by directly treating all nests of the colony. Chemical extermination of red house ants indoors should be carried out during the heating season, since in the summer they can move to open habitats.
Nutrition
Ants are one of those insects that can eat whatever they find. The main difference between their diet is the lack of fat. Depending on the age, the needs change: for harmonious development, the larvae need protein, which they receive from invertebrates: caterpillars, butterflies, worms.
Ants are also capable of attacking small animals, if they are weak or wounded, and do not disdain carrion. The ant in the photo is dragging into its home a caterpillar whose size is larger than its own.
Adults, especially workers, need carbohydrates that provide energy. A large amount of them is contained in honeydew, secreted by plants, and honeydew, which is a waste product of small insects, such as aphids.
Garden ants are indiscriminate in their food and eat both sweet berries and small insects. Woodworms eat the decay of the stumps in which they live. A special intestinal bacterium characteristic of this species helps digest it.
Cannibal ants are also known to feed on weaker individuals of their species or suck some of the nutrients from the larvae without harming them. Domestic insects that settle near humans eat everything that humans leave behind: from grains of sugar to vegetable oil.
Reproduction and lifespan
The lifespan of ants depends on their species and the social stratum to which they belong. In most families, roles are assigned from the moment of birth, in some families they change over time. The size of the individuals is also important: the larger they are, the longer they can live. The female usually survives and remains capable of reproducing much longer than the males and worker ants.
Pharaoh ants have the shortest life expectancy: males live no more than 20 days, workers - up to 2 months, females - up to 9 months. Tropical species are recognized as long-lived; their queen can live up to 30 years, and workers up to 6. Ants reproduce several times throughout the year in two different ways:
- The queen, together with several dozen working ants, forms a separate home, separating from the base of the family.
- The female is fertilized by males from another anthill, flying on temporarily growing wings.
In any case, the queen lays eggs, some of which remain unfertilized. Males emerge from them; if the egg is fertilized, it will give birth to other females and worker ants. The photo shows a queen and several workers caring for the larvae.
