Dear Dr. Joe: We have
lines of small black ants on the outside of our home. Our pest
control company sprays them and they are back the next week.
Why can't they get rid of them?
Sharon V., Parkland.
Dear Sharon: I
am surprised that your technician has not made you aware that
you probably have an invasion of white footed ants. Spraying
them 
only makes them bud
off and start new colonies. They require special treatments including
the use of a fogger occasionally. They are very difficult to
control and no one will be able to eliminate them completely.
Read the information attached.
The w.f. is a native to tropical Asia but
has been inadvertently introduced into Florida. They are relatively
small ants with a black body and whitish feet. Several attributes
of their biology help make w.f. ants a very difficult pest to
control. Established colonies may contain well over a million
individuals. About half of a w.f. colony is made up of "intercastes"
which are wingless males and females, that mate and lay fertile
eggs. Thus the reproductive potential of the w.f. is much greater
than most other ant species.
Unlike many other species, they do not carry
baited food back to the colony, so they must be destroyed one
entire colony at a time by a combination of dusting and power
spraying shrubs, trees, and the sides of the building and the
attic of the home that they are invading.
On the positive side, they do not bite or
sting and apparently cause no structural damage. That, and the
fact that they are constantly budding, (budding is a process
where many males and females leave the mother nest and go some
distance to start a new colony) makes it almost impossible to
be controlled by the homeowner. One almost needs to have access
to a power-spray unit and hi-powered duster to do the job properly.
And the technician must be willing to come back, usually at least
once or twice, to eliminate the entire colonies.
If you see thousands of little black ants
converging on the side of your home and don't want to be the
site of their next convention, I would suggest that you contact
a pest control company that is equipped and has the experience
to deal with this particular problem. Be sure that they give
you a guarantee that they will come back if the ants decide to
do a repeat performance.
Please click
here for more detailed literature on the White
Footed Ant.
Joe Bugs
dies
of fresh water, but it works. It is rated to last for one year
for imported fire ants. I applied it on a mound of ants in my
back yard. It took about two weeks to take effect, but the ants
are all gone.
