ANTS

Ants come in many varieties from sugar to black to red to pharaoh to carpenter to fire ants. If you have these insects at your house, you likely will know they are there no matter which variety they are.

In general, they are subterrainean - in other words, they live underground. They come above ground during the day to search for food and return underground at night.

One problem with ants is people often don't know the difference between an ant and a termite. Luckily they are easy to tell apart in their adult stage. The ant has three distinct body parts whereas the termite has only two distinct body parts.

The ant has 3 body parts

Unfortunately when an ant colony gets too large the send out a group with wings to start a new colony. These flying ants are not highly coordinated and tend to land on anything they hit. In our years of pest control in Colorado, we find, over and over, that the winged colony will land on the chimney of the tallest house in a neighborhood and swarm down the chimney and pour out the fireplace into the living space. We have received many phone calls from panicked homeowners with an invasion of flying ants in their living room.

Fortunatley there is an easy way to fix this particular problem. Simply light a small fire in the fireplace. This will eliminate the ones in the chimney. You can then treat the living area with any over the counter pesticide labeled for ants. If you are still concerned, you can cover the outside of the chimney with black plastic and duct tape.