Ants
In Pests
The first warm weather of the year brings out ants. They can be difficult to treat anyway but especially early on in the year. This is because as they come out of hibernation the metabolism is slow, leading to slow uptake of any insecticide or bait treatments. Another issue is that if they are only seen inside and this can happen if they are fooled into thinking Spring has arrived by an artificial light and/or heat source near to any nests, only a percentage of the nest’s workers will venture out so if these are killed by insecticide they are replaced by new ants coming out. Ant nests are rarely built inside buildings (a common exception is where conservatories and extensions are built on top of ant nests) but often on the border of the building at foundation level. This is so ants can live in a sheltered place but venture outside for food. Although ants will often forage inside a house it is unlikely that the nest will thrive just on obtaining food and water from inside a building. Now we have had a spell of warm sunny weather the ants are thriving. Below is a picture of ants feeding on an insecticide Gel called ‘Advion’. This kills the ants but not immediately, it gives the workers a chance to take the poison bait back to the nest to contaminate Drones, the Queen and other workers.
Rarely do the ants seen belong to one nest. A food trail will be followed by ants from several nests. They lay a Pheromone trail to a food or water source. If you see ants feeding like this on an insecticide bait as strong as Advion you know that the treatment will work.
PEST UK offer either combination treatments, residual insecticide treatments or a mixture of the two all for a fixed price.
