Nest may be located in hollow doors or small void areas produced during construction. Carpenter ants may move from decaying portions of wood into sound lumber in the process of expanding the nest. They cut galleries with the grain of the wood following the softer parts of the wood. The ants leave harder parts of the wood as walls separating the tunnels and cut openings in these walls to allow access between tunnels. Access to the outside may be through natural openings, or the ants may cut openings where none exist.
Carpenter ants keep occupied galleries clean.
They remove wood in the form of a coarse sawdust-like material, which they push from the nest. This pile may include, in addition to wood fragments, other debris from the nest, including bits of soil, dead ants, parts of insects and remnants of other foods they have eaten. When termites swarm in the spring or fall, they are often mistaken for flying ants because both have wings. Swarming termites quickly shed their wings, though, and burrow into the ground to start new colonies.