bug ID?

Question: Hello. We live in a log home in Juneau, Alaska, and suddenly -- over the last week or so -- we have waves of bugs that we do not recognize. The majority of them are on or around a living room window, but some are also found in the kitchen near the window and sometimes on the counter.  I am going to attach several photos. It would be great if you can tell us what they are, and what we can do to get rid of them!

responder: Jozef Slowik  Replied August 04, 2024, 11:17 PM EDT
response: Hi Larri, Those look like winged carpenter ants reproductives. Ants generally will emerge from a colony all at once. It is an oddly organized event so there may be hundreds if not thousands moving about an area over a few days. However, since you are in a log home it would be good to check that the ants do not have a colony in your home. The most obvious sign is usually ants moving around inside or along the outside perimeter. Because they are nocturnal, the best time to look is just before dark with a light. Another sign is sawdust where they have been tunneling into the wood. They also will use foam insulation, so look around areas where foam board or sprayed foam may have been used.  Getting rid of ants can be difficult and involves finding the part of the colony where the queen is and getting some pesticide to her. Once she is taken care of then the satellite colonies will collapse on their own. The queen colonies are often longer lived colonies, lasting years, and usually occur in an old stump or fallen tree outside. We usually notice ants before a queen colony can get established in our homes, so it usually just the satellite colonies in our homes. But it can occur. Often consulting with a pest control professional will be beneficial as there are many pesticide options and they usually have experience with what works in you area.

responder: The Question Asker Replied August 06, 2024, 5:28 PM EDT
response: Hello, Josef --   Well, that is not what I hoped to hear, but thank you very much for your swift and informative reply!  Before I bother my husband with this, it would help to know a few more things.    The ones that were here (that we saw) were not behaving nocturnally. We saw them on the sunny living room window, crawling on the glass and the frame. Also in the area of the shaded kitchen window. As evening approached each day, they disappeared till the next day.   Now, as suddenly as they appeared, there are virtually none in any of the places they were before. Could this mean they are in hiding, working away at eating our house?  Or might they have abandoned us and moved on?  No where they had been are there any piles of sawdust. Nor have I found any just wandering around the house looking. Might they just be secretively at work, piling up their sawdust in hidden places? How in the world would we find those!? (That last is partly a rhetorical question, but if you have any suggestions please let me know.)  Googling pest control places in Juneau, I found two places. One had a FAQ for ants. One of the things it said about carpenter ants is that one needs poison paid to lure them to their death. This sounds like something we might be able to obtain without the use of a company. Do you have an recommendations of what sort of trap/bait/poison we might look for?  Thank you again for your help!  Larri-- Larri Irene Spengler 4545 Thane RoadJuneau, Alaska 99801 <personal data hidden> (phone/fax)  <personal data hidden>     On Sun, Aug 4, 2024 at 7:17 PM Ask Extension <<personal data hidden>> wrote:

responder: Jozef Slowik  Replied August 06, 2024, 8:01 PM EDT
response: Hi Larri, Good questions. Most are nocturnal, but some ant remain active most of the day. But if you look at dusk you are much more likely to see them moving along their paths. You can actually follow these paths to the main colony because most of the action will be occurring there. So, although you'll see ants all over, most will be a heading in some direction to some place. Winged adults emerge and take flight. They may have been trapped inside just by chance, or they may have emerged from a colony in the home. Since you are not seeing others in the house that may be the case.  They use wood as a substrate for the colony, they don't eat it. So they won't abandon you and move on unless something drastic happened like the queen died or their food source entirely dried up. They are omnivorous, and eat proteins, fungi, plants. Lots of stuff. Food sources are unlikely to dry up.  The key to successful control is reducing the suitability of the habitat. If you can find them using your home, then drying it out, or sealing access is key. But to eliminate the colony entirely requires removing the queen. To do this means finding that queen colony, then you can use a bait which the ants will take inside and feed to the queen, she, like many ant queens, looses the ability to move about and relies on workers to feed her. Ant are susceptible to a wide variety of pesticides. The trick is what bait to use. This is where pest companies who work in an area with them have knowledge we don't. They can help find that queen colony, and they will have experience with what bait works where you are at. If you like you can try any of the ant baits if you can find the colony. All of the pesticides will work, but they just may not take the bait to the queen, so they may not work.

responder: The Question Asker Replied August 06, 2024, 11:37 PM EDT
response: Jozef, thank you. I hope you will be patient with another couple of questions.  A clarification, please  You wrote: "They may have been trapped inside just by chance, or they may have emerged from a colony in the home. Since you are not seeing others in the house that may be the case. " I am unclear which may be the case, the "by chance" option or the "colony in the home" option?  If these got trapped inside by chance, they presumably don't have a queen in tow, and thus might well just move on. Is that right?   When you say they will be moving along their paths, would that be on foot, as it were, or flying? When I lived in California we used to sometimes get ants (not carpenter ants) and the made long lines, walking along, following each other. But since these have wings, I'm not sure what we should be looking for.    In your first e-mail your wrote: "The most obvious sign is usually ants moving around inside or along the outside perimeter." The time to look for this, you said, was once it gets dark. Does the "outside perimeter" mean somewhere on the outside walls of our home? And again, would they be walking or flying in this situation?    Don't worry. I'll soon run out of questions, talk to my husband, and consult a pest control company!  Thank you again.    Larri        On Tue, Aug 6, 2024 at 4:01 PM Ask Extension <<personal data hidden>> wrote:

responder: Jozef Slowik  Replied August 07, 2024, 2:31 PM EDT
response: Hi Larri, Winged ants are a reproductive caste. They are just looking for a mate. If a female they will mate then try to find a place for a new colony. When they have a mass emergence event, there may be thousands flying around a neighborhood. If this was the case it's not uncommon for a few to get inside a home. They likely will die out anyway because most homes are not good colony habitat. The wood is too dry. You are much more likely to see unwinged ants roaming around. And yes, them follow paths to and from the colonies. There are some out roaming but if you follow them you will eventually find the major pathways especially near nightfall when more ants are active. And these paths are usually along the edges of walls inside homes, or along the edge of the building outside. That is where most insects and small mammals travel, it's a more secluded travel way.

responder: The Question Asker Replied August 08, 2024, 6:00 AM EDT
response: Thank you. You have been a great resource!  I'm going to re-ask a question from earlier in the chain that I think got overlooked, and then I won't trouble you any more.   Earlier on you wrote: "They may have been trapped inside just by chance, or they may have emerged from a colony in the home. Since you are not seeing others in the house that may be the case. " I am unclear which may be the case, the "by chance" option or the "colony in the home" option?  I have really appreciated the information you've provided.   Larri     On Wed, Aug 7, 2024 at 10:31 AM Ask Extension <<personal data hidden>> wrote:

responder: Jozef Slowik  Replied August 08, 2024, 1:30 PM EDT
response: Sorry I didn't clarify. Winged adults will emerge from a mature colony. If you have one in your home the adults will emerge from that colony directly into your home. If the mature colony is outside somewhere, they emerge there and in flying around end up trapped in your home.  Mature colonies are busy places, and since you are not seeing sawdust, hearing scratching, or seeing ants, my assumption was that the colonies are outside and you ended up with a few lost adults inside wanting to get back outside.  When there is an emergence period usually outside you will see many flying adults. Here in Palmer this spring it occurred over three days and there were thousands by the Farm. They got caught inside buildings and cars. But all it took was going for a walk in the late evening to verify that there were many more flying around outside all over the area, not focused to one building.

responder: The Question Asker Replied August 08, 2024, 3:18 PM EDT
response: Thank you so much, Jozef.  Now I'm ready to take all this to my husband, and we'll consider our options.    I really appreciate you patience with all my questions!  Larri    On Thu, Aug 8, 2024 at 9:30 AM Ask Extension <<personal data hidden>> wrote:

responder: The Question Asker Replied August 27, 2024, 3:09 PM EDT
response: Hello, again Jozef. A new development!Since we never saw any ants walking at all, let alone lines of them, and since we saw no sawdust piles, we thought those winged ants must have just been passing through. But a few days ago I discovered odd flakes with a few tiny bits of what might be sawdust in our loft on flat, smooth surfaces. They may be on the carpet, too, but it is not possible to tell. They don't look like the images I find when I google "carpenter ant sawdust," which show piles of actual sawdust. But we've also never had these scattered flakes before. Maybe the black flakes come from tar paper or the Celotex layer in the roof. The 80-year-old ceiling is 2 by 6 decking boards with cracks between some of them rather than tight joins. I've been in touch with a pest control outfit in Juneau, and we are willing to go that route, if need be. But if these flakes are not consistent with carpenter ants, I don't particularly want to pay them the $300 minimum to come and tell us that.I'm going to attach some photos, with a nickel in them for scale. Do they seem consistent with carpenter ant activity, in your experience? If not, do you have any suggestions about what these scattered flakes, and scattered little bits of sawdust, might be?Thank you. Larri-- Larri Irene Spengler4545 Thane RoadJuneau, Alaska 99801<personal data hidden> (phone/fax)<personal data hidden>On Thu, Aug 8, 2024 at 11:12 AM Larri Spengler <<personal data hidden>> wrote:Thank you so much, Jozef.Now I'm ready to take all this to my husband, and we'll consider our options. I really appreciate you patience with all my questions!LarriOn Thu, Aug 8, 2024 at 9:30 AM Ask Extension <<personal data hidden>> wrote:

responder: Jozef Slowik  Replied August 27, 2024, 6:14 PM EDT
response: Hi Larri, I can't say for certain that is carpenter ant frass (what we call the waste from them digging tunnels). But it could be. It often resembles fine pencil shavings.  Do you have a way to get into that area of your roof where they are falling from? If they are in an area where you do have an open joint in the ceiling boards it's probably worth your time to try to remove one board, or part of one to get a look at what is up there and thus falling down. Ants often love roof spaces because they are usually wet/moist from a slightly leaking roof or condensation and also warm. Eighty year old wood is also probably fairly attractive to them.

responder: The Question Asker Replied August 28, 2024, 1:06 AM EDT
response: Thank you. We'll think about opening up the ceiling versus just making an appointment with the pest control technician.  LarriOn Tue, Aug 27, 2024 at 2:14 PM Ask Extension <<personal data hidden>> wrote: