An ant accidentally entered the house does not pose any threat. But if a whole colony is found "guests", urgent action is needed. When small red ants start in an apartment, it becomes a real disaster for the owners. Indeed, in addition to the fact that harmful insects spoil food, even penetrating into the freezer, and bite painfully, it is extremely difficult to remove them.
External appearance
The little reddish ants that live in city apartments are called pharaoh ants. Domestic ants differ from garden, field and forest insects in their size: they have a small body, painted orange or light chestnut.
Working ants are the smallest in comparison with males and females - their size does not exceed 2.2 mm.
The body length of males can reach 3.5 mm, and there are transparent wings on the back. The queen of pharaoh ants is the largest insect. The length of her body varies from 4.7 to 5.2 mm. The uterus has wings that fall off after fertilization.
REFERENCE: It is not easy to see the uterus - you need to find and stir up the ant's nest.
How to distinguish between indoor and outdoor ants?
Indoor and outdoor ants are very similar, so it is easy to confuse them. However, there are some features by which these insects can be distinguished:
- Forest and garden ants are much larger than domestic ants;
- The colors of the insects also differ slightly - there are light stripes on the abdomen of the pharaoh ants;
- Domestic ants are evenly colored reddish, and in garden ants, the breast and lower part of the head are orange. The belly and crown of street ants are dark brown or black in color.
The main difference between insects is their way of life. Forest and garden ants are engaged in the construction of an anthill and take care of their queen. Pharaoh ants are pests that engage in destructive activities.
Video TOP 10 incredible facts about ants:
Cleaning
But it's important to clean up the bathroom.
- Spring-cleaning. You need to inspect things in the bathroom, throw out all unnecessary things. Walk with a rag under the bathroom, climb into all corners, pulling out the debris, wiping off the dirt. Wipe surfaces and walls with disinfectants (Domestos), not forgetting about the joints and crevices.
- Microclimate. Change your bathroom climate. Remove all water and dry the bathroom and sink. Ventilate the room as often as possible so that there is no dampness. Buy and install a fan heater in your home. Don't forget about the heated towel rail. Make sure that taps, pipes do not drip.
- Protection. In an apartment building, insects move from one apartment to another through cracks or ventilation grilles. Protect your bathroom from outsiders by sealing up any crevices and pulling the mesh over the air vent.
- Use ant repellents to kill or scare them away from your apartment.
Spring cleaning will help solve the problem of ants
Lifestyle
Red ants were first discovered during excavations in Egypt, from where they got their name - Pharaohs. These insects are very thermophilic, therefore they are not able to exist on the street.
Once in a house or apartment, red ants begin to look for suitable places to create nests.
Let's stop at the places where Pharaoh ants can live:
- Under the rugs;
- Behind the skirting boards;
- Under furniture;
- In crevices and holes in the wooden floor.
Finding an ant nest is very difficult.
IMPORTANT: A significant problem is the rapid increase in the number of pests and their creation of more and more nests in the apartment.
Pharaoh ants eat almost all products, therefore they are able to exist in any room.
The main occupation of domestic ants is the creation of more and more nests around the apartment. Each new nest formed by insects is closely related to the main, main anthill, but it exists and develops independently. If you find and destroy one nest, the ant colony will not be affected at all.
In just a couple of weeks, pharaoh ants form nests all over the premises in the apartment. Each nest may contain several queens that are actively laying eggs. The average life span of the uterus is 4.5 years. During this time, one female is able to breed several generations of red ants.
Red ants are the most difficult pests to remove and take a lot of time and effort to control. In order to destroy all the nests, it is necessary to apply several means at the same time and process every room in the apartment.
How Red Ants Escape During Floods:
Do traps work
There is no special need to use traps, since they insignificantly reduce the number of working individuals, and do not in any way affect the life rhythm of the family. However, if there are a lot of ants crawling around the apartment, there is no way to poison them, you can use traps as a temporary means of protection.
- Most popular sticky traps. Placed along the baseboards, behind furniture. Insects stick instantly. You can use regular double-sided tape, the main thing is to place it in a good place.
- They put sugar on the saucer, as soon as a bunch of ants gather there, throw out the contents of the plate.
- Jam or honey is added to the water, the container is filled. When trying to get to food, insects fall, drown.
- Leave any fruit as a treat when the pests creep, swat or throw it out into the street. Pharaoh ants do not live in the wild, so they will die anyway.
Now reading: Deta gets rid of ants or pretends
Traps are not an independent means of fighting ants, it is advisable to use them in dressing up with other methods, or to abandon this idea altogether.
What harm do they do?
Pharaoh ants bring tangible harm to the living space:
- Food spoilage. Due to their small size, red ants are able to penetrate everywhere. They can be found in sugar, cereals, baked goods, and various foods and dishes. After the ants have penetrated the food, it can no longer be consumed;
- Contamination of the apartment. Food debris, excrement and other waste products of these pests accumulate near ant nests. Since the nests are located in hard-to-reach places, it is rather difficult to detect contamination. Garbage near the ant colony serves as a medium for the development of microbes, bacteria, larvae of other insects;
- Domestic ants carry various diseases, including the bubonic plague.
6 most dangerous poisonous ants:
Let's talk about the dangers of transparent ants
Small insects can cause significant harm. First of all, we need to talk about the likelihood of transmission of infections. These can be diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, and so on. Ants eat a wide variety of foods. But most of all they love sugar.
With an illiterate approach, it will be ineffective to conduct an independent fight against parasites. To render the colony harmless, the female must be eliminated. She is always in the nest and lays eggs. The nest is located in a secluded corner: between cavities, or in crevices.
Where do ginger ants come from in the house?
Pharaoh ants appear in apartments for various reasons. Pests are attracted by the smells of food and the heat that emanates from the apartment.
Domestic ants can crawl into the room through cracks, an open door, get into an apartment from clothes, shoes.
Most often, insects migrate from places where there is not enough food or there are a large number of nests. Pharaoh ants can get into a dwelling from the entrance, basement, neighboring apartments.
Fire ant bites:
What to do with ants
At the sight of a colony of insects on tables, window sills, there is a desire to slam them, but such actions will not solve the problem. A small part of the representatives of a huge family crawls from above, and their death will remain unnoticed. In a few minutes, the same number of parasites will crawl. You should not be very happy if you managed to find a nest.
Pharaoh ants build several of them. One apartment can house up to 3 large nests, a dozen small ones, depending on the availability of favorable places for the construction of a nest. Anthills are linked by labyrinths. If it becomes dangerous in one house, they, with all their good, move to the next one. With a strong infection of a multi-storey building, the nests can be located in several apartments, and the family is able to wander periodically to one or the other neighbors.
Therefore, the question of what to do with ants is acute. Complex actions are required, the use of several types of funds, as well as smoothness of actions with neighbors.
How to get rid of house ants in the apartment?
As soon as you notice small red pests in the apartment, you must immediately begin to deal with them.... How to deal with ants in the house:
- Use of special aerosols;
- Application of insecticidal gels;
- Mechanical destruction of ant nests;
- Use of special crayons;
- Calling professional pest control teams;
- Folk remedies.
IMPORTANT: In order to get rid of pharaoh ants, experts recommend using several methods at the same time.
Pest drugs
Concentrated solutions based on insecticidal agents, poisonous baits will help get rid of red large ants in the apartment.
Disinsection
Preparations from pests For the procedure, any broad-spectrum insecticide is used. Suitable:
- Clean house;
- Dichlorvos;
- Karbofos;
- Executioner;
- Geth.
All residents, pets are taken out of the room, they put on a respirator, rubber gloves. Treat the floor of the wall with a solution, furniture must be from a spray bottle or spray bottle.
The room is closed for 2 hours. After that, the apartment is well ventilated, wet cleaning is done in those places where a person's hands can touch.
The poison acts immediately, the maximum result is noticeable after 2 weeks. The poisonous substance penetrates through the integuments of the body, causing paralysis, death.
Gels
Poisonous baits are released in the form of a gel. It is necessary to place it with a dotted line in places where insects move more often. The composition includes a poisonous component, which begins to act after entering the intestines, flavors attract attention. Flavor enhancers make the bait especially attractive to ants. They eat poison more readily than normal food.
The action lasts for 14 days, the layer should be updated periodically. The main advantage is safety for humans and pets.Recognized as effective remedies for ants:
- A great warrior;
- Volcano;
- Global;
- Fas;
- Clean house.
Fighting ant families in an apartment is a laborious, long-term process. With the combined use of professional, folk remedies, a lasting result is achieved only after a month of active efforts.
Useful Tips
We bring to your attention some valuable recommendations for a successful fight against pharaoh ants:
- It is necessary to use chemical agents to kill ants in empty rooms, when family members and pets are away;
- Pack the food carefully to avoid getting insecticides on it;
- After using special aerosols, the room must be closed for several hours, and then thoroughly ventilated;
- If you have a small child at home, give preference to folk methods of fighting pharaoh ants.
In rooms heavily infested with pests, it will not be possible to get rid of them on your own. In this case, you should use the services of professionals who will quickly and effectively destroy domestic ants.
What do we mean by killing ants?
Our main task is to get rid of ants as a source of spoilage of our products, as a risk of infection due to the spread of microbes around the house. For the destruction of insects to have an effect, you need to perform a whole range of actions. At first glance, everything may seem very complicated. But there are several methods that can be used to control such persistent pests.
(Video: "How to get rid of ants at home")
Ants are constantly migrating around the apartment. They get food in the nest, where there are larvae and the main female. It will be ineffective to use only one means, for example, traps. The same applies to those products that only temporarily scare away insects. It is important to remember that the drugs used for bullying must have a really strong effect.
- Garden ants often enter private homes.... They are larger in size in comparison with their red counterparts. But, if you thoroughly lubricate window sills and doorways, for example, with a prepared solution of sunflower oil, wild mint or elderberry, then you can block the path of insects.
- You can get rid of black ants with traps.... They love everything sweet. Therefore, prepare water with sugar or honey, pour it into deep containers, and arrange around the perimeter. The ant will climb into the container and drown.
- The following recipe helps a lot to cope with ants.: a teaspoon of sugar dissolves in boric acid. The mixture is diluted with a little water and mixed thoroughly. Further, with the help of a pipette, the prepared liquid is dripped onto the ant trail. The insects collect the mixture and transfer it to the nest. Thus, there is a local impact on the colony.
- Try to kill pests with strong chemicals... Aerosols are best. They spray the chemical to ensure that it gets into cracks and vents.
Power features
These insects are omnivores. Food for them can be the remnants of human food, sap and parts of plants, animal corpses. To get food, these insects are able to attack sick or wounded animals, helpless cubs or chicks, other insects, as well as their own kind.
A person's dwelling becomes an inexhaustible storehouse of food for red ants. Even if all food is securely packed and placed in an inaccessible place, these voracious insects will eat paper, leather or textile products and wallpaper glue.
Link to topic
Find out how to get ants out of the house on your own in our article here.
Complex organization of the colony
It has been proven that an ant alone, even in the most optimal conditions, can live for only a few days.This phenomenon has not yet been studied and has no reliable explanation, but the bottom line is that red ants are social insects, with a clear organization of work and distribution of responsibilities.
In any anthill there are:
- reproducing queens;
- worker ants;
- eggs;
- pupae;
- larvae.
Queens differ from workers in larger sizes, and are born in order to constantly lay eggs. After fertilization, the male red ants die, and the winged females fly out in search of food. After laying eggs, they bite off their wings on their own and stop feeding. The larvae, which were born first, they feed with their secret, and after the appearance of the working individuals, they shift this responsibility onto them, and they themselves continue to lay.
Working ants have underdeveloped reproductive organs, so their function is to get food, build chambers for laying eggs and develop larvae, protect the anthill and take care of the offspring.
Eggs, pupae and larvae are unable to move and feed on their own. Therefore, until they come out of the nest, the care of them rests entirely with the "nannies".
Ants communicate with each other using secreted pheromones, which can signal danger, food and other situations.
Insect description
The red ant is a hymenoptera, the size of which does not exceed 5 mm. The body can have a different color intensity from reddish to dark brown. There is a clear division into the head, chest and abdomen, connected by a thin bridge that provides mobility and maneuverability.
Ant body parts:
- The head has powerful jaws, with which ants gnaw the body of the victim, transfer their larvae, pieces of food or building material. Two compound faceted eyes are located on the sides of the head, and three simple small ones are located in the center in the form of an inverted triangle. But the main senses are antennae, with which the insect feels objects, creating a complete picture.
- On the chest there are three pairs of rather powerful legs, the ends of which are equipped with curved claws, allowing you to move on a vertical flat surface.
- The segmented abdomen is the largest part of the body, as it houses the reproductive and digestive organs. The abdomen of a worker ant is equipped with a sharp sting. With its help, he can not only defend himself, but also paralyze his victim by injecting poison.
Human harm
In addition to destroying food supplies and damaging property, red ants can cause a fire, as in the absence of food they begin to gnaw on the insulation of electrical wires. But the main danger is represented by bites, during which the insect injects a strong poison into the human body, which can cause an attack of suffocation, bronchial asthma, and skin rashes in people prone to allergies.
In addition, the affected areas begin to itch strongly, appear:
- redness;
- rashes;
- swelling;
- signs of intoxication.
Multiple bites can cause:
- dizziness;
- loss of consciousness;
- respiratory arrest;
- fatal outcome.
