What Carpenter Ants Eat Carpenter ants cannot eat solid food. Mostly they gather aphid honeydew or tree sap. Human food includes candy, honey syrup, soda pop, apples, raisins and pet food. They can eat the dissolved portions. Mated queens find a suitable place to live and chew off their wings, excavate a small home and begin laying eggs.
Mated queens lay eggs which become workers or queens.
Unmated queens or queens which have run out of sperm can produce only males. By the end of the summer either workers have emerged or the larvae from late eggs become dormant. The dormant phase ends about mid-January, when the queen begins laying eggs again. It took about 3 seasons to produce even a few larger workers in Hansen's studies. The number of years it would take to produce reproductives is estimated to be 3-5 years.