ANTS

Apex Pest and Lawn is your Professional Ant Exterminators along the Wasatch Front.

Call us today for professional ant control. Our licensed exterminators will inspect your home or business pest situation and identity the problem and help you determine the right course of action. Our consistent goal is to stop the source of the problem so it won’t come back.

Why you have ants:

Ants feed on sweets, starches, and even greasy foods. They will typically enter a building when foraging for food and water and they can travel long distances. The ants that you find foraging in homes or buildings will account for typically 10% or less of the colony size. When these foragers locate a food source they will lay a scent trail (with pheromones) leading to and from the nest. Once the trail is established, you will have an ant problem. Indoors, they are usually found along walls, hiding under baseboards or carpets. Outdoors they are generally found under decorative landscaping, wood piles or rocks.

General Facts:

There are over 12,000 ant species worldwide, but only a handful of these species will typically be found infesting building in the Utah area. Aside from being a nuisance, they have been known to transmit diseases such as Salmonellosis and Staphylococcus. Ants are social insects that live in communities. This means that they depend upon each other for survival. They live in large communities called colonies, and they will form underground nests comprised of chambers and interconnecting tunnels where they store food, lay eggs, and maintain nurseries. These nests can extend into in trees or within man made structures. There can be tens of thousands of ants within a single colony and it is possible to have several colonies inhabiting the soil or landscape surrounding a property. For this reason, they are the most common type of insect that we encounter and they can be difficult to exterminate.

Common Ant Types:

Acrobat Ants

These ants will usually nest high inside structures up near the ceiling or roof line and live in walls, ceiling voids, or inside the tongue and grooves of siding or paneling. They can be identified from their habit of holding their abdomens above their heads. (this is also how they get the name acrobatic ant). Controlling this species of ant is usually accomplished by finding their nesting locations and making a crack and crevice or void treatments directly to the nesting areas.

Carpenter Ants

These ants are our largest, native ant species, with the winged Queen ants maturing to nearly 1 inch in length. They do not eat wood like termites, rather they cut and excavate through wood to create chambers and passageways for the colony. The debris discarded from exit holes is usually the only obvious indicator that a carpenter ant problem is present. They are normally attracted to wood that has been previously damaged by water.

Citronella Ants

These ants are usually not a problem, as they nest deep underground and the worker ants are rarely seen. The problem can arise when these insects swarm indoors. Since they can swarm multiple times over many weeks, they can be quite a nuisance. They do not readily take ant baits so it is usually necessary to use an insecticide that will target the ground nesting area. These ants have a distinctive odor similar to citronella that is apparent when they are crushed.

Odorous House Ants

These ants will smell like rotten coconuts when they are crushed, They are small, dark brown to black in color and range from 1/16th to 1/8th of an inch in length. They have very large colonies and will travel long distances to collect food. Colonies have multiple queens and are not restricted to ground locations; this means they can nest inside wall voids or under siding. Non repellant insecticide applications and a variety of ant baits should be deployed and efforts need to be directed towards the nest and trails leading into structures. Also regular follow-ups are usually necessary to confirm extermination or the colony will rebound quickly.

Pavement Ants

These small ants are brown to black in color and typically 1/8th of an inch in length. Entrances to their underground nests often resemble volcano-like mounds, that can be seen between the cracks and crevices of pavement and landscape pavers. Sometimes these ants will also infest buildings, especially if the foundation is built upon a concrete slab.

Pharaoh Ants

These ants are usually found in warmer southern climates. Still, they can be carried in to local buildings inside of boxes, cartons, luggage and furniture brought up from southern States. This ant species is difficult to control and will often require detailed inspections to find the nesting locations. Pharaoh ant workers and males are about 1/16 inch long; while queens are about 1/8 in. They are pale colored and can nest anywhere from the soil to the attic. They have multiple queens and can spread quickly throughout a structure. It is generally not a good Idea to spray insecticides to control these ants unless it is a non-repellant product as you can spread the problem.