wings<\/a>. After having spent the winter in her colony of origin, in May the queen will leave it for good with one male (also winged), and will mate in flight.<\/p>\nThe queen\u2019s very well-developed abdomen already holds the ovaries which are ready to be fertilized; it also contains another compartment, the sperm pouch (or spermatheca), where the male\u2019s sperm cells are stored. This reservoir can even keep the seminal fluid viable for several years, so that the queen can lay fertilized eggs without the need to mate again with a male.<\/p>\n
The queen is the colony\u2019s largest ant\u2014measuring up to one inch long\u2014and is mostly black with slight shades of brown or red depending on the species.<\/p>\n
The carpenter ant queen\u2019s characteristic behaviour<\/h2>\n
Once fertilized, the queen loses her wings and immediately begins seeking a suitable location to lay her first set of eggs. In nature, she will most likely choose a tree trunk, a large tree stump or piece of wood. The queen will feed her first offspring herself, over a period of 50 to 70 days, until they are able to take charge of feeding the next batches of ants that will be born after them.<\/p>\n
Up to this point \u2026 no problem. We\u2019re even impressed!<\/p>\n
However, the main concern for us humans\u2014who share the environment with these insects\u2014is when the queen finds shelter in our homes, or nearby. What brings her to do this?<\/p>\n
She has been attracted by two things: food and wood that is soft, damp, or decomposing.<\/p>\n
Contrary to popular belief, carpenter ants don\u2019t eat wood; they excavate it to form networks of galleries to store eggs and food. The queen will choose a spot that most fulfills these criteria. For example, in a home this might be wooden window frames, void spaces between walls, behind mouldings, stairs, \u201curethane\u201d insulation or hollow doors.<\/p>\n
Eliminating a carpenter ant queen: not so easy!<\/h2>\n
Some species of carpenter ants in Qu\u00e9bec have only one queen, but other species can have several. What is true about all of them, however, is that the queen will only start laying reproductive female and male eggs at least 3 years after founding her own new colony.<\/p>\n
Once the nest has become mature, part of the colony may at times break off to move nearby and establish a satellite colony, with no queen. This is why buildings can become severely infested over the years if left untreated.<\/p>\n
All of this means that when eliminating a nest of carpenter ants, it\u2019s important to try to locate the queen; the assistance of an experienced exterminator will save you a lot of time in this respect. Sometimes, it\u2019s not always possible to find the queen amongst the thousands of ants present. If this is the case, it is likely that the nest in question is only a satellite nest and that the mother colony is elsewhere.<\/p>\n
In many cases, the mother colony is located outdoors not far from your house, or near a neighbour\u2019s house. In this situation, the recommended strategy is to ensure that the ants\u2019 future access to your home is completely blocked; if the location of the mother colony outdoors can eventually be discovered, it is preferable to eliminate it. A pest control professional is able to inspect your home and its immediate surroundings, and will offer the best advice depending on the circumstances.<\/p>\n
If you have reason to believe that a mother colony may have invaded the structure of your home, the help of a licensed exterminator will be invaluable to find it and eliminate it completely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Are you locked in battle with a colony of carpenter ants? You\u2019re not alone\u2014each year, hundreds of Qu\u00e9bec home owners in the Greater Montr\u00e9al area are forced to intervene to avoid serious damage to their home. One ant is the root of the problem: the queen. \u00a0 How do you find and kill the queen? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1510,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"Why is it essential to recognize and kill the carpenter ant queen? Is it possible to achieve this by yourself? Read the answer in this article.","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pest-control-tips"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/avalancheextermination.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/avalancheextermination.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/avalancheextermination.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avalancheextermination.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avalancheextermination.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1504"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/avalancheextermination.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3070,"href":"https:\/\/avalancheextermination.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1504\/revisions\/3070"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avalancheextermination.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/avalancheextermination.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avalancheextermination.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avalancheextermination.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}