Ant Nest Removal

Lasius Niger – Black Ants

All ants live in colonies and while there are three roles of ant in these colonies, it is likely that you will only ever see two kinds: the female workers (drones) and the male ants when they spread the nest. The male ants have wings and so when you see “flying ants” these aren’t a different species of ants they are just your normal black ants trying to spread their nest.

At this time, the aptly named ‘Flying Ants’ spread to build new colonies however when they have nested indoors, infestations may cause problems anytime of the year. You are very unlikely to see the queen as she is normally at the very heart of the nest.

Black ants are a fairly easy issue to resolve. Our team can easily and efficiently get rid of the nest with simple control methods.

All About Black Ants

There are about 60 different species of ant in the UK. They have poor eyesight and use their antenna as well as the scents left by other ants to keep in line with each other. They feed on vegetation as well as other animals and sometimes rival ants. They are incredibly strong and can lift twenty times their own body weight and scientists estimate there are at least 1.5 million ants for every human on the planet!

At certain times of the year ant swarms are made up of new queens and males – which is called their ‘nuptial flight’. Once this flight has been made, the males die and the queens land elsewhere and start new colonies. They then bite off their wings, never fly again, and instead settle into their main function of reproduction.

Black ants can bite and sting. You would feel a nip, which may be itchy, but the bite itself is harmless. They pose little risk to our health, but are an obvious nuisance.

Monomorium Pharaonis – Pharaoh Ants

Pharaoh ants can bite humans although they cannot sting anything as their stinger’s function is to generate hormones with which they communicate to other ants about foraging trails. Generally Pharaoh ants are two millimetres (1 ⅙ inch) in length and a light yellow colour. They are distinguished from their cousins by their dual noded petiole (their petiole being the narrow waist between the thorax and the abdomen).

All about Pharaoh Ants

Pharaoh ants are one of the more difficult ants to deal with. Unlike most ant colonies, Pharaoh ants always have more than one queen at any one time and this means that they are able to completely take over areas of habitat in small spaces of time. For example, a single colony could populate large office block from nothing to exclusion of all other pests within 6 months. Furthermore, due to the fact that there is more than one queen, Pharaoh ants live in different compartments called buds with one queen per bud. I any single bud is attacked or threatened then all the ants will simply move to an outer bud and abandon their original bud. This means that if you do not treat a nest of Pharaoh ants correctly then you will only be left with a worse situation as they will grow in number and in areas inhabited. They are notorious for ruining lawns and causing problems for biodiversity as they are particularly successful at scavenging all the food in the local area.

While there are 12,500 classified species of ants, there are 20,000 known species of ants which means that we know that there are 7,500 species that we know exist but know very little about! It is very likely that the number of species that exist is much bigger than 20,000!

The biomass of all ants is equal to the biomass of all humans! This means the weight of all ants is equal to the weight of all the humans on Earth!