Don't Let Ants Invade Your Toronto Home
There are over 10,000 different species of Ants. Their colonies are long lived, worker ants living between 4 and 7 years and the queen may live as long as 15 years. Ant nests may be terrestrial (based in the ground), arboreal (based in trees), or structural (based in buildings). This last type of nest, structural is where ants become a problem as they have invaded living quarters of humans. Ands have become the number one structural pest in North America including the United States and Canada. There has been a major influx of ant infestations in the Toronto area.
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The primary key to sucess in controlling most ant infestations is to find and directly treat the colony with the appropriate insecticide. Baiting is also a helpful and strong means of control depending on the type of ant infestion in the Toronto home. Colonies of certain types of ants can be hard to locate thus giving the worker ants poison to bring home to the queen ensures the colonies failure as once you kill the queen, you kill the colony. Pharaoh ants, for example, must be controlled with bait as they can have many dispursed colonies. Carpenter Ants, however, are better treated with a residual insecticide spray.
Workers are female ants that cannon reproduce. These are the majority of the ants inside a colony. Of these very few actually venture outside of the colony looking for food. This means that as the number of ants actually seen outside of the nest is only 5% of the colony. These are typically the older workers. The remaining workers aer younger in age and specialize in food relating, food storage, caring for the young stages of development (ie larvae) and nest mainenance.
Polymorphic ants divide their workers into three grounds. These are designated by the size of the ant. The smallest ants tend to the young. Medium ants gather food and do light nest maintenance. The largest form do heavy housekeeping chorse and nest defence.
Dimorphic ants divide their workers into two types of workers: small and large. The smallest ants tend to the brood of larvae and the queen while the larger ants take care of nest maintenance, food, and nest defence.
Workers in monomorphic ant colonies are given their tasks by age. They perform all duties in the nest at different phases of their lives.
The male's eyes are larger thus he can see the queen better. His sole purpose is to mate with the queen. He dies within two weeks after mating. He is winged but he cannot fly very well and often mating occurs on the ground as is the case with Pharaoh Ants..
The queen is usually the largest individual in the colony. Her first and most important duty is to find a good nesting location. Many species of ants have several colonies (called satelite colonies). This includes pharaoh ants, little black ants, crazy ants and pavement ants. The queen mates only once but continues to produce offspring until she dies. In some species (prodominately the pharoah ant) feeding the larvae in a special way will cause her to become a queen.
Toronto's Booming Ant Population
The major obstacle to eliminating an ant population from a Toronto home is identification. Our staff has the knowledge and experience to be able to properly identify which species of ants. Through proper identification, our technicians can determine the best method of elimination, via sprays, dusts, or baits. Each species requires specific attention. For example Pharaoh ants are best treated with a bait while carpenter ants are best treated with a spray.
Ants As Social Insects
The next step is to identify the location of the colonies. All ants are social insects in which the adult individuals are specialized in certain tasks. These are referred to as castes. Each caste helps to create this society of ants working towards a common goal. This is the success of the colony even if it is in your Toronto home!
Adult ants are made up of three castes - workers, males and reproductive femails.
Different Sizes of Ants
Different species of ants may differ in size classes of their workers. Many ant species including pharaoh ants, are monomorphic. This means they only have one size. Big-headed ants are dimorphic have two sizes. Ants that have several different sizes are polymorphic including carpenter ants and fire ants.
