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Coby here with Coby’s Tentless Termite and Pest Control, talking about all things bug related in the Tampa Bay area, Tampa Clearwater st, Petersburg. So today it’s getting questions about carpenter ants. And this is the time here we’ll see a lot of swarming insects, termites, ants, little ants, big ants, and then these really big ones, up to a quarter of an inch, and they will be around lights or your pool area and or if you are out and about in the evening time you will see them in the street lights sworn toward street lights. And so I can remember one one time I was going into a grocery store here in Clearwater, and it was probably 830 at night, and every time the automatic doors have opened, it’s big thing of termites will come down and go right into the into the swirling, of course, everybody’s in the stores running in there. I thought it was kind of comical, but, but the only thing you could do is keep the door closed, because as soon as that door opened, there was just so many 1000s upon 1000s swarming in that parking lot that any any avenue for them to get in they were going to get in. The good news about carpenter ants is, there is such a thing, is that they do not eat wood. Let me say that again, carpenter ants do not eat wood. Now, it took me over 10 years before I found that out, because every place I read they didn’t say they ate wood, but they didn’t say they didn’t eat wood as well. And then all of my carpenter customers would say, or a lot of my customers that were from north to say, Oh yeah, we had a problem these car prints. They ate our back porch off. And I was hearing things like that over and over and over and over again. And then I happened to go this one seminar, I was like the ant expert of the world that was talking about different things. And after seminar, I stopped him. Said, Hey, look, are there ants that could eat wood, that can do damage to wood? He goes. So here’s the deal. In North America, there is no ant that can actually eat wood. What they can do if you and I can take our hand and crumble it because it is rotten, or they wouldn’t eat funguses in there, if they can do that, then what you wind up with is a soft, spongy thing, and they they excavate that, and they’ll live inside of that. Now they can, they can live inside there. But they also like electronics. I found them in the food processor. I have found them in hot water heaters. I’ve seen them pool pumps and or air conditioners outside. Them nest into the electronics and short, because we’re so many, they shorted out the the component, so they can live in a lot of different things under the insulation. So when I first got into this business, this was, this was almost 40 years ago, the only you could find or do anything with these, these find or do anything with the ants, you’d have to track them down. And so you’re looking for one ant and following the thing from point A to point B, hoping that it would go someplace. And it took hours and hours and hours for you to do this. And it was not uncommon to have 1015, colonies, and you’d go back to a home. I had one house that had 27 separate colonies, and it took me over 20 visits before we finally got rid of them, on how we found them and where they were at. And then came transfer products, products to where, if you put it down, term like that, into probably the A got into it, and then it transferred back to colony and killed the colony. And that was just a godsend for all of us who grew up in this business, where you had to track everything down, works so effectively, and still does today. And usually, once you apply pesticide, these pesticides down for ants, and they work for just about any ant, but, but put them down. Usually it’s a three to seven day process, and once that process is done, almost always they’re gone. I’d say less than 5% of time. Then you go back a second time for that. And if I do, there’s usually some place where I didn’t even come close to going ahead and treating the area. So So covid, the good news is they don’t eat with the bad news is that if they can be in your home infested, but it is something we can help you with. So if you have questions about this or anything else, please give us a call, and we’d be happy to go ahead and talk about this or anything else. Um. Always remember, as long as God keeps making them, we keep killing them. You have a great day.
