These red ants were first discovered in Egyptian tombs, hence their name - pharaonic ants. India is called the homeland of arthropods, from where they began to explore the planet on ships.
In the northern regions, these heat-loving creatures live only in people's homes, being one of the most famous pests.
- 7.1 Chemicals
Description and appearance
The little Egyptian invaders are also called red ants due to their coloring. Sometimes there are individuals of a dirty yellow hue. The length of the body of working insects does not exceed 1.5–2 mm. Males are slightly larger, their size approaches 2.5 mm. The largest representatives of this species are the uteri. They grow up to 4.5 mm and have a darker color, closer to black.
Like many other species of ants, only those individuals capable of fertilization have wings. After mating, the future queen chews them off.
Appearance
Basically, the colony of red pests consists of working individuals. They are the ones who hang around in the kitchen, spoiling food and things.
Habitat and lifestyle
Pharaoh ants also have another name - ship ants. It was with the help of ancient ships, hiding in goods, that they began their settlement, gradually moving from port cities further and further into the continents.
In the 20th century, with the advent of new types of transport, the process of development of territories by these pests went faster. Now they are found everywhere except Antarctica.
Insects prefer to live in warm, dark and damp places. Ants go out in search of food at night. They are most active at air temperatures above 20 degrees Celsius. Can tolerate short-term drops to +10°C. Insects do not hibernate in winter and reproduce all year round.
Reviews
Alina:
“We live on the 9th floor, there are pharaoh ants. It was impossible to leave anything on the table, bread bin, or in the cabinets. You take a cookie and a bunch of ants fall out. We fought with folk remedies, bought traps, different gels, but nothing really helped. Our salvation was the Bros bait. I had to fork out more, but I saw the desired result within a week.”
Svetlana:
“We have pharaoh ants in our wall. There was no way to reach them. It is pointless to carry out disinsection, since the uterus is inside, and not alone. I bought gel bait. The corpses began to appear the next day. Gradually the whole family died.”
Sources
- https://petse.ru/nasek/myrav/faraonovy-muravi.html
- https://hloptarakan.ru/muravi/faraonovy-muravi-kak-pogibayut-chem-pitayutsya-i-kak-razmnozhayutsya.html
- https://safari-34.ru/muravi/matka-muravya-domashnego.html
- https://wildfauna.ru/faraonov-muravej
- https://beetlestop.ru/faraonovyi-muravi/
- https://apest.ru/muravi/vidy-muravev/faraonovye-muravi/
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Anthill structure
House ants build their nests using any hollow spaces: in baseboards, floors, between ceilings, behind wallpaper, in household appliances, furniture. They gnaw through their own premises for storing food, growing offspring, and the royal monastery.
Several thousand individuals can exist in one colony, gradually occupying more and more space, forming new nests connected by passages.
Uterus
To see what the queen of a pharaoh ant looks like, you need to find their nest, since the queen leaves it only at the time of relocation. You can distinguish it from working individuals by size and color. It is almost twice the size of the other inhabitants of the anthill and has darker integuments. There are several queens in one nest, which ensures rapid growth of the colony.
Although individuals capable of fertilization have wings, they do not experience summer. Mating occurs within the nest. After which the male dies, and the resulting seminal fluid is enough for the queen to lay eggs for the rest of her life. The queen's lifespan is about 10 months. During this time, she is able to lay about 400 eggs.
Unlike many other species of ants, the separation of a young ant queen occurs by the “budding” method. The queen leaves to build her nest along with some of the workers, larvae and eggs. At the same time, quite friendly relations remain between the families, and in the event of some cataclysms, one colony can move to the nest of its neighbors.
Hierarchy
A clear hierarchy and the presence of several fertile females makes eliminating pharaoh ants in the home a difficult task. Among working individuals, only about 10–12% are engaged in obtaining food. Most of the colony does not leave the nest. They raise offspring, keep the storerooms in order, and look after the queen. The guards stand guard and make sure that no stranger can enter the anthill.
The most useless creature in the family is considered to be the male, who is needed only to fertilize the young uterus. After this, his death is inevitable. They live only 20 days, while working individuals live for about 60 days.
Ant "table of ranks"
Communication and mutual contact between fellow tribesmen is carried out using channels (signal and food). The colony is conventionally divided into “detachments”:
- Workers.
Soldiers.
Females.
Males.
At the head of this legion is the queen, aka the queen.
. The uterus has the largest size. This is a real egg production conveyor. The working group of ants is required to care for eggs and pupae, search for and prepare food, repair and strengthen the anthill. A detachment of guard ants, the so-called soldiers, perform protective functions, guard entrances and deal with strangers. Females and males are destined for the role of participants in the process of reproduction.
Anthill defenders are a subspecies of the worker ant, but with slightly larger dimensions. Some ant species have insect soldiers that are unable to feed on their own. The workers are forced to feed them.
The main function of a soldier is protective. It protects the anthill, food supplies and foraging ants. A secondary task is to help dismember large prey into parts if the worker ant is not able to carry it away entirely.
Nutrition
The diet of pharaoh ants depends on their habitat. Insects are omnivores and easily adapt to different types of food. They drag into the nest everything that they consider potentially edible, and there a division takes place among individuals according to caste. The larvae and queen get more protein foods, while the worker ants get more carbohydrate food.
Pharaoh ant
These pests are very fond of sweets. They happily consume honey, syrups, and sugar. They do not refuse pastries, bread, butter. Domestic insects, their larvae and eggs will also be carried into the anthill.
When there is a shortage of food, pharaoh ants switch to products made from cellulose, leather, wool and other materials.
Why is the pharaoh ant harmful and dangerous?
These creatures never attack people, do not try to bite, and are not poisonous. They are absolutely safe for pets too. However, it is difficult to call them harmless. In addition to spoiling food and things, they are carriers of dangerous diseases. While exploring the territory in search of food, pharaoh ants climb into waste bins, garbage chutes, and sewers, where they can pick up pathogenic microflora and contaminate its food. By making nests in household appliances, they cause their failure.
Reasons and ways to enter housing
Pharaoh ants are heat-loving, so they cannot exist in Russia outside heated rooms. They are also attracted by the opportunity to get enough food near the nest. In favorable conditions, insects reproduce at a tremendous speed, and, once in a multi-story building, they are able to populate it in a few months.
Initially, red pests can be brought into your home with old furniture. One fertilized uterus is enough to infect an apartment.
From neighbors, from basements and attics, these small creatures penetrate into any crevice. They get in through ventilation shafts, cracks and cavities near pipelines. In the summer, pharaoh ants may try to climb up an exterior wall through open windows.
Where do they live?
Ants prefer secluded places to settle, which are protected from human access. Anthills are especially common in large metropolitan areas.
If we talk about their favorite habitats, they choose:
- old furniture,
- The space between walls, furniture,
- The space between the floor boards,
- In electrical appliances and even sockets,
- Under the furniture.
Finding a nest of pests inside an apartment is a very difficult task, since it is characterized by its small size and location in the most secluded place.
To find food they move up to 30 meters (sometimes more) and return back. Since hostility between individuals is excluded, even in a small area there can be several anthills at the same time.
Fighting methods
The fight against pharaoh ants is complicated by the fact that they build nests in secluded corners, and only foragers go outside the anthill. You can kill these working individuals as much as you like, but this will not solve the problem. Therefore, using traps and sticky tapes, you can only slightly reduce the number of insects, which will recover very quickly. The nest must be destroyed along with the queens.
You can find an anthill by following where the insects take their prey. Having discovered one nest, you cannot calm down, since most often there are several more nearby.
In case of severe infection of the apartment, the best way would be to contact specialized services. They will help get rid of pests in a short time.
Chemicals
If pharaoh ants have just appeared in the apartment and you managed to find a nest, then you can use aerosols. Most likely, they have not yet had time to settle, so the problem is solved quickly. You need to choose products against crawling insects. Well proven:
- Battalion commander,
- Raptor,
- Dichlorvos.
Powder preparations or crayons are applied in places along the paths used by ants. The poison sticks to the pests' legs and gets into the nest. The following tools will help solve the problem:
- Fas-Double,
- Absolute,
- Mashenka.
Mashenka
Poisonous baits guarantee the destruction of entire colonies. Insects, taking food into the anthill, will not only die themselves, but will also poison the larvae and the queen. Experts advise using the following medications:
- Bros.
- A great warrior.
Folk remedies
You can try to remove pests using traditional methods:
- A remedy such as boric acid helps get rid of ants. It is either scattered in powder form at places where pests move, or used for poisonous baits. To do this, prepare a mixture of yolk, sugar and boric acid. The poison is placed in places where insects appear.
- Strong odors prevent ants from finding their usual paths, which means getting to food. Therefore, you can wipe all accessible surfaces with water with the addition of vinegar, garlic juice or herbal decoctions of wormwood, cloves, and elderberry.
- Honey mixed with borax is placed in small containers in places where insects have been spotted. The pests will soon disappear.
How to Prevent Pharaoh Ants
The pest control methods presented in this text are good, but you can avoid these unpleasant procedures and discomfort. By adhering to the established rules for caring for your home and following the prescribed instructions, you can forever forget about the appearance of ants in your apartment. There are preventive measures that will help avoid colonies of harmful insects from settling into apartments. Below are some of these methods:
- regular cleaning of the premises using cleaning products and water;
- cleaning and eliminating cracks in the floor and other places;
- using a trash can or trash can with a lid that closes tightly;
- storing food in special closed containers and a clean refrigerator;
- constant cleaning from dust.
Ants look for places where there is food for their existence. If food is reliably hidden in the apartment, they will not be able to feed themselves and will have to look for another place to create nests. If you carefully monitor the cleanliness of your home, you can cut off all possible ways for insects to find nutrients. It’s not difficult, and besides, these things are part of a healthy person’s daily routine. If the house is kept clean, you don’t have to think about insects.
