If you’ve ever been to Texas, it doesn’t take long to realize just how special this city is. The scenery, the enjoyable downtown area, and the emphasis on quality make it apparent to anyone that enjoys being comfortable in their homes and around their beautiful properties. However, if you spend a little time in Texas, you’ll probably see something else too: the crazy ants that love to scurry around when they’re disturbed in any way. Their frantic behavior might have earned them their unique name, but it’s their threat to homes and properties that gave them their reputation.
Not Your Typical Ant
Crazy ants are different from regular ants in their look and their behavior. Raspberry crazy ants, also known as tawny crazy ants, travel the globe in the same ways as goods shipped worldwide. This variety is usually red or brown, and only about 1/8” long. However, with their long, skinny legs and a protective outer coating, these ants can scurry about quickly and are formidable foes to insects that eat regular ants. And they multiply quickly. Instead of just one queen ant in each colony, they usually have multiple queens, each laying eggs numbering in the hundreds. The largest crazy ant colonies, even indoors, can have over a million worker ants.
But there’s one more way that they differ from regular ants, and this one is by far the most troublesome: they’re much more difficult to get rid of. They can live year-round indoors, so this poses a huge threat to homes (especially kitchen supplies). Their love for eating sweets, fruits, and other insects will affect food stores and even the honeybees living nearby.
Driving Yourself Crazy
In order to “save the bees” and, more importantly, your home and kitchen supplies, preventing crazy ants from gaining a foothold in your home is essential. Once they’re in, there’s not a whole lot you can do about them. If you’re inspecting your property, their nests are more likely to be outdoors within easy access to moist soil.
And remember, they don’t walk in a straight line like most ants. Their trails are not as easily seen since crazy ants like to roam around sporadically. They will also travel a long distance from their nest, so these nests won’t be easy to find.
There are sprays that can be effective for controlling crazy ant populations, but figuring out where to spray is the challenge. With no apparent trail and hundreds of possible nest locations both inside and outside the home, you can spray multiple spots with poor results.
You might also think about trying certain ant baits. Anything that contains Imidacloprid can make for an effective bait, but this is dangerous for children and pets. And once again, you’ll have to find the right spot to place the bait, in the way of high ant traffic and out of the way of humans or pets.
With all of these hoops to jump through, you have to ask yourself if it’s really worth it. But it IS worth it to fix the problem because crazy ants can be a serious nuisance around the home. For the most effective prevention and eradication methods of all kinds of pests, contact the professionals at Innovative Pest Control. We have been keeping homes crazy ant-free for years and would be happy to add you to their long list of satisfied customers. Some things are just better left to the pros. Reach out to Innovative today for professional assistance. You’ll be happy you did.
Categories:
- Fire Ants Prevention,
- Fire Ant Control,
- Ant Control,
- Ant Prevention,
- Crazy Ant Control,
- Ant Identification
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