One large carpenter ant

[Robert Jones]

This was one of the largest carpenter ants I have come across during an inspection. I had to "stun" it to get the second pic.

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[John Kogel]

You killed our queen and we know where you live! [!] [!] [!]

There are actually 5 different sizes of carpenters, so even the little ones are bad news, there can be a colony in the house.

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I think yours is actually a worker on steroids. They're the ones that bore the tunnels, push the sawdust and do the bull work.

[ghentjr]

Your stunned ant looks like a King. Not a worker.

Colonies consist of a Queen (egglayer), a King (egg fertilizer), Winged Males and Females (Future colony Farmers) and Workers (food gatherers and wood destroyers).

[Jim Katen]

That's a foundress -- a fertilized female who's dropped her wings. You can see the scars on the sides of her thorax. She's probably already laid her first clutch of eggs which have probably developed into larvae already. If you killed her, they'll die.

- Jim Katen, Oregon

[waynesoper]

yes, a foundress, and she worked for Century 21

[Bain]

How does Jim Katen know this shit? I don't see any scars, but I don't know what I'm looking at and I'm sure they're there.

[Jim Katen]

I used to have pet carpenter ants.

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[Ben H]

How does Jim Katen know this shit? I don't see any scars, but I don't know what I'm looking at and I'm sure they're there.

LOL

[John Kogel]

I used to have pet carpenter ants.

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Actually, that scar's from where I winged it with a pellet gun a couple of days ago. Nice catch, Robert.

Just kidding Jim, we believe you.

BTW, you might have called them your pets, but somehow I don't think your pet ants gave a flying funk what you thought. []

[Jim Katen]

. . . BTW, you might have called them your pets, but somehow I don't think your pet ants gave a flying funk what you thought. []

In fact, they behaved rather coldly toward me.

I discovered them living in the wall of my house and I installed a small "window" with a removable plug that I could use to watch them at night. I was able to monitor them for about a week like that before they caught on. One evening, I opened the plug to find that they'd moved out. It took me two weeks to figure out which stud bay they'd moved to. Next, I installed a more discrete peep hole with a mirror, so I could watch them from farther away -- figuring that my scent or my breath or something was bothering them. The moved again. This time into the ceiling space. I was trying to figure out how to install a small camera in the nest but never did. (This was in '94, before cheap webcams were available.)

Then they went on the offensive. One night, about 2:00 am, one of our 2-year-old twin boys woke up screaming. We rushed down to his room to find his hands & face positively covered in carpenter ants. All I could figure was that we had brushed his teeth before bed and the ants were after the toothpaste that was smudged around his lips. After we cleaned him up & swept up the ants, my wife took me aside and hissed, "Tomorrow, your 'pets' get put to sleep."

- Jim Katen, Oregon

[Mark P]

Damn Jim, that sounds like an episode of Steinfeild.

[Tom Raymond]

OK, besides stoping the water intrusion that lured them there in the first place what treatment does one use to kill the ants?

Tom

[gtblum]

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Carpenter aunt.

[robert1966]

I performed an inspection on a home two weeks ago and the garage was covered with some of the largest carperter ants I had ever seen.