Flying ants are often an unwelcome surprise inside your home. Although they seem like a benign group, flying ants might be an indication of a more serious problem. They are not to be taken lightly in any way as they can significantly cause some damage to your home and disrupt your peace of mind.
The following blog walks us through exactly what flying ants are, how they inflict damage, and more importantly, how you can prevent them from entering your house.
What Are Flying Ants?
Flying ants are winged, reproductive members of an ant colony and include males and females with wings. Both males and females take part in "nuptial flight." This generally takes place in warm, humid weather.
During the nuptial flight, males and females mate; afterward, males usually die off, and the fertilized females fall to start new colonies. While flying ants are just a part of the ant colony life cycle, their manifestation in sheer number is quite disturbing, especially when they invade a house.
Damages Caused by Flying Ants
Flying ants, particularly carpenter ants, can destroy your whole property. In the following ways, all the possible damages that flying ants can cause will be specified:
Structural Damage
One of the greatest kinds of flying ants that can cause structural destructiveness is carpenter ants. When compared to termites, carpenter ants not only burrow wood but feed on it as food. This is tunneling that becomes weak over some time, putting some integrity at risk, be it that of beams, walls, or even floors.
If an infestation of carpenter ants is not kept in check, they might create serious structural issues that bring huge, expensive repairs. You might find signs of them in the form of hollow-sounding wood, small piles of wood shavings, or weakened wooden surfaces.
By nature, ants are attracted to food materials, and flying ants are no exception. They can easily find their way into your pantry or kitchen and contaminate your food with bacteria and pathogens they pick up from other environments.
That poses a great danger of infection, especially if you have little kids, pets, or anybody in your home whose immune system for one reason or another happens to be compromised. You might see trails of ants coming towards the food and gas cylinders or find them inside various foodstuffs directly making them inedible.
Electrical Damage
Another area where flying ants can cause problems is in electrical wiring. Sometimes ants will be attracted by the warmth or electromagnetic fields that emanate from electrical devices and wiring. Chewing through the insulation on the wiring could lead to short circuits, a loss of power, or even electrical fires if shorted.
Far worse, in extreme cases of damage the repair may require professional electrical work, adding yet another layer of expense and danger to a flying ant infestation.
Flying ants are generally non-aggressive and barely bite. In the event of feeling threatened, they can bite you. Ant bites are generally thought to be quite mild by the general public and cause little irritation.
However, ant bites are allergic to some people, which are in another context very serious cases of an anaphylactic shock: such people should consider treatment in a health facility, and the healthcare provider is likely to use the ant and the bite information to assess the allergic reaction extent.
Decimated Garden Plants
Flying ants, especially those from the species of fire ants, can mess up your garden big time. They will burrow into the soil, causing a disruption to plant roots and, therefore, the general health of your plants.
This tunneling can trick the plants into stunted growth, and plants can even die due to such tunneling, particularly if the ants disturb the root systems. Other than destroying plants, ants would also be farming pests, such as aphids, the most common ones that will destroy your garden. They protect aphids from predators in return for feeding on the honeydew produced by the aphids. This will only continue to do more damage to the garden as the population of aphids grows and multiplies unchecked.
Increased Pest Attraction
Flying ants may unwittingly attract other intruders into your home. Natural predators like spiders or birds – which are drawn to large numbers of ants – might therefore, subsequently lead to a nest infestation.
Spiders can create webs all over the house in a bid to capture the ants for food, while birds can build their nests nearby, lured in by the available food source.
Aside from flying ants, among other things that flying ants may drill for nesting include the floor or carpets. These small heaps of sawdust, known as frass, are a pretty good sign of an ant infestation.
Gradually, their tunneling will weaken the structure of your flooring to create weak points or even visible holes. When ants nest below your carpet, the carpet will wear out lopsidedly and start having bumpy, loose sections. The affected floors generally require either restoration or replacement, both of which are costly.
Nuisance
Apart from being a complete nuisance in terms of physical damage, flying ants can also be a source of great stress and cause a lot of anxiety. The sighting of swarms of flying ants in your house can be a chilling spectacle if not well prepared on how to handle the infestation.
The continual presence of ants, with one cleaning up after them, can muddle one's mind. This stress is exacerbated by the degree of infestation: a severe infestation can make you feel overwhelmed and that your home is under siege.
1. Seal Entry Points
This may be the best prevention method from flying ants – to seal all the points that they use for entering the house. Carefully examine your house and look after cracks, crevices, or holes in walls, windows, doors, and premises in general.
Use caulk or weatherstripping to seal them. For better effectiveness try not to forget the place where utility lines enter, such as electricity and communication. Quite often these are the places through which ants find their way inside.
2. Eliminate Food Sources
Ants come primarily in search of food, and they particularly have an affinity for food that is sweet. For that, you must keep your kitchen and eating areas clean. Clean your food preparation benches and counters often.
Store all your foods in airtight containers, and even pet food, as chubby ants are attracted to pet food. This takes away easy food and, in turn, your home becomes less attractive to flying ants in search of a nesting site.
Moisture is a strong attractant for ants, both winged and nonwinged. Leaky pipes, faucets, and roofs can create moist sections in your house and, therefore, ones that are very friendly toward ants. Inspect your house often for signs of leaking or other water damage inside.
Ventilate wet areas like bathrooms, kitchens, and basements well, to limit the accumulation of excess moisture. By reducing the level of moisture, you can make your home less appropriate for the presence of flying ants.
4. Trim Vegetation Around Your Home
Long plants, trees, and shrubs can act as bridgework in your house for flying ants. This is particularly important because it keeps back vegetation that is in contact with or close to the house, especially those branches hanging over your roof and touching the exterior walls.
Not only will it reduce the odds of penetration of a home by ants, but it will also deprive them of such nesting places. Many problems with flying ants can be avoided by having a good-looking, well-maintained yard.
5. Keep Firewood Away from Your Home
Stacking firewood against your home also puts you at risk of attracting carpenter ants, which are known to be active proponents of structural damage. More commonly, ants use firewood as a high-rise nest hotel; from here, it is just a stone's throw to entering your home.
To help keep flying ants from nesting within -or even inside- your home, keep firewood stored at least 20' away from your house and elevate it off the ground with a firewood rack or on top of pallets.
Ant baits and traps, as before, can be quite effective at keeping a flying ant infestation away. You can place them around your home, especially near the entry points and where their activity is prominent.
What the baits do is attract the ants with their scent, and the ants will carry the poison back to their nest to eliminate the colony. Traps provide a way to capture flying ants before they have time to establish colonies. Check them regularly and replace them to work with the full efficiency of bait and traps.
7. Regularly Inspect and Clean Gutters
This can breed moisture problems, and pests such as ants will capitalize on such an environment. These will include flying ants. Gutters with leaves, debris, and water are ideal for these pests. To curb this, regularly clean your gutters, especially during fall and after storms.
Ensure downspouts do not direct water at the house's foundation to avoid water stagnation. Clean your gutters and there will be lesser chances of insects, including flying ants, setting in your house or nearby.
8. Use Natural Ant Repellents
The list of natural remedies does not end with soapy water or boric acid. Some essential oils, like peppermint, tea tree, and citrus, can also act as repellents for these critters. Mix several drops of each oil with water and spray the solution at the windows, doors, and other entry points.
You can also dip cotton balls in the oil and set them at likely entry points for ants. The pungent smell of these oils is a natural repellent to ants and aids in keeping them away without harsh chemicals.
9. Install Screens on Windows and Doors
If it is during their nuptial flight, using window and door screens to prevent flying ants from entering the home might be a good idea. Ensure that the screens are in good condition and do not have any holes or tears that the ants could slip through.
You might even want to confirm that the screen on a sliding window or door fits tightly and that everything closes appropriately. Add another layer of protection against flying ants to get into your home and other pests.
Regular cleaning helps greatly in preventing flying ants from getting into the house. Vacuum and sweep regularly, particularly entry points, that is, entryways, kitchen, and basements. Pay attention to crumbs, spills, and food residue that might be a food source for ants.
This will eliminate potential food sources since a clean home has no places for them to hide or build their nests. This provides a less attractive dwelling environment for most pests, including flying ants, in the house.
11. Use Diatomaceous Earth
Diatomaceous earth is a non-toxic, organic powder that can turn out to be very effective against flying ants. The powder dehydrates the ants that come into contact with it, and ultimately kills them.
Just sprinkle diatomaceous earth around the perimeter of your home, especially near the entry points and places of ant activities. This is safe for human beings and pets, but lethal to ants, thus creating a great barrier against flying ants getting into your home.
12. Monitor and Remove Ant Nests
Occasionally check your yard for ant nests as this will aid you in keeping off the flying ant species attack. Be keen on the presence of their nests in the ground or even under rocks and rotten wood.
This way, reducing ant colonies outside your home will minimize the chance of flying ants flying into your home as a way of reproducing. Ensuring that your yard does not have any nests is a precursory measure toward not having an infestation.
In instances with heavy infestation, it might call for the use of chemical insecticides. Apply these around entry points, windows, doors, and foundations, and where you have previously noticed ant activity.
Make sure you read and follow the application instructions on the product label and take appropriate care to ensure children and pets are not exposed to the treated areas.
14. Reduce Outdoor Lighting at Night
Flying ants become attracted to light, especially when they are on their nuptial flight. Over-excessive outdoor lighting at night may attract them to your home. Use motion-activated or yellow bug lights, since lesser light attraction of flying insects is attractive towards them.
Dimming your indoor lights with curtains or blinds reduces the attraction of lights by the ants towards your home. So, dimming or low attraction of light that flying ants are attracted to may help in diminishing the incidence of entering your home.
15. Maintain Proper Ventilation
Proper ventilation can keep the humidity levels low in your home, thus preventing it from being a good breeding ground for flying ants. Attic, basement, and crawl spaces—these rooms require better ventilation because they usually store moisture.
Use an exhaust fan, dehumidifier, or vents to decrease humidity. A dry condition makes your house less friendly to condensation-loving pests, among other ant species
Door sweeps are a simple yet effective way to keep flying ants out of your house. Install them on exterior doors, making sure that the fit is snug and they are in good condition.
These sweeps obstruct the entry points from under the door that ants and other types of pests try to slip through. Keep inspecting the sweeps for fraying or other wear, replacing them so that they continue doing their job.
17. Use Boric Acid
Boric acid is yet another working solution in keeping flying ants away. It acts as a poison when ingested and can help in killing the colonies. Sprinkle boric acid in areas through which the ants are likely to get in, like around the windows, baseboards, and entryways.
Be careful while using, as boric acid is harmful if ingested by pets or children. Used correctly, it can help maintain a flying-free ant colony.
18. Hire a Professional Exterminator
If the infestation is high, you should consider hiring a professional exterminator. They are better equipped with the necessary experience and working tools that can easily exterminate the flying ants and prevent other outbreaks in your residence.
They can also point to the root source of the problem likely to attract ants to your house. The only con of such a solution is high costs, but in turn, you will be ensured peace of mind and the eradication will surely be effective.
Flying ants, in particular carpenter ants, are attracted to wooden structures in your home. Regularly check the beams, flooring, and other wooden elements for damage or signs of ant activity.
Look for small holes, frass (wood shavings), or weakened wood that may be a sign of infestation. Early detection of these signs will avert severe destruction and make it easy to deal with the problem before it spreads.
20. Educate Yourself About Ant Behavior
Behaviors and lifecycle of ants should enable you to be in a position whereby you take early steps before there's any infestation. Look up the different kinds of ants that are commonplace at your place of residence.
With that information, you will be in a better position to be up in arms for any potential problems that can enable you to put on prevention strategies. Self-education with less of a doubt goes a long way in enhancing awareness about flying ants and other pest prevention.
Carpenter Ants: Carpenter ants are one of the most concerning types of flying ants you may encounter. Unlike termites, carpenter ants don’t eat wood but excavate it to create nests. If you find carpenter flying ants or black winged ants inside your home, it’s a strong indication that there might be a colony nearby. Their activity can lead to structural damage over time, weakening beams, floors, and other wooden structures. These insects flying ants should be dealt with promptly to prevent costly repairs.
Pavement Ants: Pavement ants are common in urban environments, often found nesting in cracks in sidewalks, driveways, and building foundations. Their winged ants in house or outside aren’t particularly destructive, but they can be a nuisance if they find their way indoors. Small ants with wings that you spot indoors are often pavement ants seeking out new nesting sites.
Fire Ants: Fire ants are known for their aggression and painful stings. When you notice flying ants in house and they turn out to be fire ants, it’s best to exercise caution. Their colonies can be a danger to both pets and humans. Fire ant alates or black winged ants in your yard or home may signal the start of a larger problem, so taking preventative action is essential.
Argentine Ants: Argentine ants are notorious for forming massive colonies. When their flying ants inside the house emerge, they can quickly spread, making control efforts more challenging. Argentine ants are particularly persistent, and their colonies can span entire neighborhoods, which makes getting rid of flying ants related to this species especially tough.