Attack of the Carpenter Ants

dgerndt · Jan 27, 2011

I AM SO ANGRY!!! I just bought 20 small crickets the night before last, and when I went to grab a few to feed to my beloved mantids, they were ALL KILLED. Carpenter ants had gone and massacred each and every one of them! I am fed up with these guys! I found that they set up there little home in the orchid my sister gave me, and so I got rid of it. But they're still here! How can I get rid of them without poison? My mio munches on the ones that stray into her cage, so I can't just set up ant traps. If I don't get rid of them soon, I'm going to explode!!!

PragmaticHominid · Jan 27, 2011

That sounds so frustrating. I hope you find a solution soon. I would have suggested desiccating dusts like diatomaceous earth, but obviously you don't want that in your house with your pet bugs, especially if your mantises eat some of the ants. (Diatomaceous earth kills by drying the pests out).

Ntsees · Jan 27, 2011

By your description of them living in the orchid, they sound to be small black ants. When I hear the name Carpenter ant, I think of the large black ants that live in the mountainous areas near me. In terms of keeping ants away, probably the best method would be to not have any food out (or things that may be giving off odor that are favorable for ants...like dead, wounded, or live crickets that just smells too good for an ant) inside your home.

Entomo-logic · Jan 27, 2011

Have you tried to apply a small bead of Petrolium jelly or 3-in-1 oil around the lip of the outside of the cricket container? This prevents most medium and large ants from getting into things.

dgerndt · Jan 27, 2011

@Ntsees: They're the big ones; a good centimeter in length. I don't eat food in my room and I have nowhere else to put my crickets.

@Entomo-logic: No, I haven't. I'll try that. Why does the jelly/oil stop them?

lancaster1313 · Jan 27, 2011

Oh man! I just can't stand it when that happens. :angry: I was keeping my cricket container out on my porch when it was warm, until the ants got them. I made the mistake of leaving the crickets out a couple of times,(even after that incident). I then began keeping them in the laundry room, next to my ant proof feeders,(the ants won't eat my Surinam roaches for some reason). All was well until a few days ago when the ants invaded the laundry room and found the crickets. The ants come in the laundry room sometimes and clean up pieces of dog food that get dropped. Now, they haven't even touched the piece of dogfood that I left there, I just know that they are looking for the crickets. <_< I have been keeping the cricket container in my bedroom and I hope the ants don't come looking in there because that is where the mantids are. :sweatdrop: I don't know what species the ants are but mine are small and LOVE crickets. :2guns: :shifty:

geckoboy3 · Jan 27, 2011

I've lost some money with the ants.... including reptiles, fish, inverts, even birds (NOTE: I don't keep birds--- I watch over a few, though---- and I just dabble at fish keeping).

I leave borax (spelling?) out and it dries them out, killing them. However even though I've kept ants, I hate those ones.... I've had at least 15 different species <_<

Ntsees · Jan 27, 2011

Deby said:
@Ntsees: They're the big ones; a good centimeter in length. I don't eat food in my room and I have nowhere else to put my crickets.

Oh I see. They probably are Carpenter ants then. Ants are usually hard to get rid of completely. If you're planning to prevent your crickets from getting eaten the next time you get some, the only thing I can think of (assuming that your cricket container isn't heavy) is suspend their container with a fishing line (or 2 or 3). You can suspend the cricket container where ever you like but make sure the cricket container isn't touching a wall of some sort. The ants may smell them, but won't be able to get to them. They would have to climb to the top where the line holds the cricket container. And even if they did manage to get to the fishing line, they should not be able to climb down the string since the fishing line is slippery and doesn't provide much grip to hold on to (plus those ants are big and they should definitely not be able to climb down a slippery thin string). Well, that's my creative thought which, although I've never tried it, I'm confident will work.

dgerndt · Jan 28, 2011

Maybe I'll use petrolium jelly AND suspend the cricket container from my ceiling. There's no way I'm going to lose more crickets to these darn ants. Don't get me wrong, in general, I think ants are pretty cool. I love how organized and efficient they are. But that's what makes them so frustrating when you don't want them around.

lancaster1313 · Jan 28, 2011

:lol: When I was trying to keep my crickets outside, I set the container in another container of water. This didn't work for very long because the ants made a bridge. Hanging the container up sounds better.

dgerndt · Jan 29, 2011

Jeez! Ants are so determined!

Koshmar · Jan 29, 2011

Silica, if eaten by ants will expand inside their stomach and cause it to rupture. I don't know what effect it would have on a mantis though.

dgerndt · Jan 30, 2011

I'm going avoid using anything offensive against the ants until all my defensive measures have failed. So far my ant problem has slowed down. I only see one or two a day, instead of five or six.

Mr.Mantid · Mar 11, 2011

Maybe you can try to find the queen and kill her?

PhilinYuma · Mar 11, 2011

Koshmar said:
Silica, if eaten by ants will expand inside their stomach and cause it to rupture. I don't know what effect it would have on a mantis though.

Silica, boric acid and a few other powders are useful insecticides that are non-toxic to other critters (or egg tempura, apparently. I had a friend who used this old fashioned medium and used boric acid out of fear that organic pesticides would damage it!). They act a little less dramatically, though, by eroding the wax layer on the outside of the insect's epicuticle, so that it dies of dehydration. I imagine, though, that it would be fatal for mantids. too.

O.K., I confess. The real reason that I answered this post was so that I could mention autothysis ("self sacrifice"). This is an amazing defense mechanism used by carpenter and some other ants, some aphids and termites, in which when hard pressed in defense of their colony (or in the case of the aphids, their brothers and sisters) these insects will explode, emitting sticky goo over the attackers and killing them as well as themselves. With a little luck, in the case of nest dwelling species, the sticky mess also blocks off the entrance. Ain't that cool?!

lancaster1313 · Mar 12, 2011

PhilinYuma said:
Silica, boric acid and a few other powders are useful insecticides that are non-toxic to other critters (or egg tempura, apparently. I had a friend who used this old fashioned medium and used boric acid out of fear that organic pesticides would damage it!). They act a little less dramatically, though, by eroding the wax layer on the outside of the insect's epicuticle, so that it dies of dehydration. I imagine, though, that it would be fatal for mantids. too.

O.K., I confess. The real reason that I answered this post was so that I could mention autothysis ("self sacrifice"). This is an amazing defense mechanism used by carpenter and some other ants, some aphids and termites, in which when hard pressed in defense of their colony (or in the case of the aphids, their brothers and sisters) these insects will explode, emitting sticky goo over the attackers and killing them as well as themselves. With a little luck, in the case of nest dwelling species, the sticky mess also blocks off the entrance. Ain't that cool?!

That is cool!

dgerndt · Mar 13, 2011

Phil, you never cease to completely blow my mind. THAT IS SO COOL!!! Too bad I never got to see any explode.

Hypoponera · Mar 14, 2011

Afraid you won't get to see any carpenter ants explode in Michigan. The species phil referred to does not live in North America. I will try to remember to find some info on where they are found.

You can use a number of commercial baits OUTSIDE of your house to eliminate the colony. Most of the foragers will be found outside. The baits will be taken back to the colony and not carried around your bug room. I have even gone so far as to spray Ficam and Tempo in my bug room over the years. These are NOT aerosols, but wettable powder formulations. They work well on ants and caused no problems for any of my mantids, ant farms, or giant millipedes. Yes, I am a believer in better living through chemistry :lol:

PhilinYuma · Mar 14, 2011

Yes, sorry if if I raised your hopes, Deby. I would guess that your carpenter ants are Camponotus pennsylvanicus (though, as usual, I defer to Hypopnera on this) and the best known member of the "exploding" group is Camponotus saundersi which lives in Malaysia.

But don't give up yet. If you can get hold of the termite species Globitermes sulphureus....

Attack of the Carpenter Ants

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