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Talking About Pest Control
How To Deal With Argentine Ant Infestations In Your Kitchen
Carlos Douglas
Keeping ants and other unpleasant insects out of your kitchen is always important, and even the smallest ant colony can wreak havoc if infestations are not dealt with swiftly. However, not all ants are made equal. Argentine ants are an invasive species of ant that have spread across vast areas of the country, and exterminating a colony of these tenacious pests can be more difficult than you might think.
Why Are Argentine Ants Difficult To Exterminate?
Argentine ants certainly don't look like anything special. They are small, reddish-brown ants that look very similar to a number of other ant species. What makes Argentine ants difficult to deal with is their unique behavior and the unusual structure of their colonies.
Unlike subterranean ant species, Argentine ants are poor diggers, and rarely build colonies underground. Instead, they populate large areas of loose cover, such as beneath fallen leaves or inside the trunks of fallen trees.
Unfortunately, this nesting behavior makes the average kitchen a very attractive place to an Argentine ant colony. They can colonize the gap beneath your refrigerator, the spaces behind your kitchen cupboards, the space underneath the bottom shelf in a pantry, and a hundred other small, undisturbed spaces found within the average kitchen.
Because these 'nests' do not provide much protection from predators, Argentine ants instead rely on strength in numbers. Colonies will rapidly breed and expand to fill every available space in your kitchen. Most colonies have at least two or three queens, which are unusually mobile and difficult to locate. They also don't fight over territory as much as other ant species, and two separate colonies will frequently merge into a 'super-colony'.
All of these unusual behaviors make Argentine ant colonies frustratingly difficult to exterminate. Even if you catch and kill a queen, there is usually at least one more waiting in the wings. Their relatively sparse distribution makes pesticide sprays less effective, and the survivors will quickly establish a new colony in some obscure corner of your kitchen where you would never think to look.
How Can I Exterminate Argentine Ants In My Kitchen?
If you notice small, brown ants infesting your kitchen, and basic measures such as off-the-shelf bug spray are ineffective, you should call in a professional ant extermination service as soon as possible. These services can identify the type of ant you are dealing with. If the ants are Argentine ants, your chosen service can use special methods to thoroughly exterminate these hardy bugs.
Because finding and destroying the heart of an Argentine ant colony is so difficult, it is better to let the ants destroy it for you. Ant control specialists can install ant baiting stations in areas of your kitchen where ants are frequently seen, or just outside the kitchen to draw ants away from your home. These baits contain protein-rich bait foods which are laced with a slow-acting poison.
As the ants take pieces of the bait back to their colonies, the poison spreads through the colony, eventually killing any ant that consumes the poisoned bait. These bait stations are highly effective at killing Argentine ant queens. Once the queens are dead, the colony can no longer breed and will disperse and die.
Ant extermination specialists can also deploy diatomaceous earth along the paths where Argentine ants usually travel. Diatomaceous earth is an incredibly fine mineral powder with microscopic particles. As ants move through the diatomaceous earth spread along their paths, the fine particles rupture their exoskeletons. This method may be preferable if you have pets and are worried about using bait stations, as diatomaceous earth is completely non-toxic.
For more information on ant control, contact a professional near you.
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