but here it goes. Will carpenter ants "wake up"? I have a chance at some nice dry wood, but I noticed dead/frozen ants in it. Are they dead, or dormant - and if I bring it in the house, will they "wake up" with the warmth and infest the rest of my wood? Thanks.
Dumb question....
- Thread starter pipehead
- Start date
Help Support Arborist Forum:
forcedintoit
ArboristSite Operative
??????,,, I just let them wakeup in the fire!:hmm3grin2orange:
When you are cutting and run into a section with carpenter ants don't pour any 2 cycle mix on them or in the holes. You will kill them. :hmm3grin2orange:
wdchuck
Addicted to ArboristSite
Yes, they will come out of dormancy and get to moving around.
Why yess they will. a few years ago I brought a bunch of "frozen" ants home for my kids ant farm. about 30 of em. at least 25 woke up and we had a hell of a war with the other ants that where already residing in the ant farm.
John R
Addicted to ArboristSite
- Joined
- Oct 16, 2010
- Messages
- 1,460
- Reaction score
- 456
ponyexpress976
nipple fritters
I keep a pile by the back door outside...stuff with ants. Doesn't come in until the stove needs a feeding.
audible fart
MS390 OAK CZAR
I've had a couple flies wake up this week. I just hit 'em with a tiny burst of that aerosol spray that makes them break dance in agony for 5 minutes until they finally die. I looked in my identification book but I can't find out what kind of bird is helping me out. Some kind of pretty cool bird is constantly flitting around/ into my wood pile eating bugs every daylight hour. If that bird had hands I would high five it for doing that.
jrr344
Addicted to ArboristSite
It is a trick that bird is after YOU.
bobt
Addicted to ArboristSite
Yep, but they sure hate the fire!
Last year I cut down a few small Tamarack trees for firewood. They had big black ants in 'em. After the wood was split and piled outside in the sun, I sprayed the pile with diazinon or some other bug killer. I mean I really soaked the pile so that I figured I exterminated the whole lot of 'em.
In the fall, I moved the pile into the basement next to a pile of Maple. Well, don't you know that those darn ants were still very much alive in the Tamarack, and made little piles of sawdust between all the pieces in that pile all winter until it was all burned up.
But the ants did NOT travel into the other piles of Maple. They stayed in the Tamarack. So, in the end, there was no further infestation.
Bob
Last year I cut down a few small Tamarack trees for firewood. They had big black ants in 'em. After the wood was split and piled outside in the sun, I sprayed the pile with diazinon or some other bug killer. I mean I really soaked the pile so that I figured I exterminated the whole lot of 'em.
In the fall, I moved the pile into the basement next to a pile of Maple. Well, don't you know that those darn ants were still very much alive in the Tamarack, and made little piles of sawdust between all the pieces in that pile all winter until it was all burned up.
But the ants did NOT travel into the other piles of Maple. They stayed in the Tamarack. So, in the end, there was no further infestation.
Bob
It is my understanding that the true carpenter ant nests in teh ground, not in the wood. Thus there will be no queen in firewood and no new colony can be started. I had some that was just riddled with ants and their tunnels. All went through the stove. I think they even added a few BTUs
Harry K
Harry K
Junkfxr
ArboristSite Operative
I spent a little time working at a local sawmill. You should see an ant filled tree when it hits the saw blade.:hmm3grin2orange:
Last edited:
yep
Mmmmmm. roasted ants covered in chocolate...
Are we all invited for Desert ??
Mmmmmm. roasted ants covered in chocolate...
Are we all invited for Desert ??
indiansprings
Firewood Purveyor
It's sad here, almost every oak we buck up has ants in it. Very few clean trees anymore, we will hit pockets that have several hundred regular ants and dozens of big winged ants in alot of our red oaks. It's amazing how durable they are. We see alot of mice in older trees with wood pecker holes, hollow places in the trunk.
BPS. LLC
ArboristSite Operative
I hear carpenter ants have more BTU's than other ants.
Former exterminator here. Carpenter ants do not nest in the ground, they like to nest in wood. They do not eat the wood like termites, but like to nest in it. They will sometimes get their water from wood, but not food. They will eat just about anything, including other ants and their own dead.
Will they 'wake up" if brought in from the cold? Absolutley yes. They will go dormant in the winter, eventually either freezing to death, if in an unsheltered spot, or just die of starvation.If you have a fertile or fertilized queen ant in the wood, you've got the beginnings of a nest. If it's just a bunch of workers or warrior ants, you will have a pain in the posterior (and an angry wife) for a few weeks or months, until you kill them or they die naturally. They generally do not live more than a few months before dieing off.
If you have a queen ready to lay eggs? Brother, you got a problem. I have seen first hand the enormous amount of damage they can do. I recomend baits. You can mix your own out of Boric acid dust and powdered sugar. Just put it in little cups wherever you see the critters. If you have small kids or pets, I would NOT do this. Boric acid can be nasty if you get it in your kids eyes or up your prize hunting dog's schnoz. Bayer makes some really good bait stations with Fipronil as the chemical. Great stuff, used it at my own house after I brought home some carpenter ants with my firewood. Also used to use it alot on customers houses. Can take a little while to work , but will generally wipe out a nest completely in a couple of weeks.
For any of you geeks, I will splain how it works. When an ant finds food, it immediately eats it, and brings it back to the nest, leaving a pheromone trail to follow back to the source. It then brings it back to the nest, horks it up, where it is fed to the queen , young, and other ants. With the Fipronil, it stays in the ants system, and it will sweat it out. Ants constantly brush up against each other, so a poisoned ant will kill up to a dozen others by touch. Then, when it dies, it is eaten by the other ants, killing more. The other ants follow the pheromone trail laid out by the original ant, bringing more bait back to the nest. The food part of the bait is made up of all the favorite foods of your average carpenter ant, so they love to eat the stuff. I had a few bait stations completely emptied overnight at one customers house.
Do not mess around with carpenter ants. They can and will literally eat you out of house and home. Seen it too many times. They can do major damage if left unchecked. If you can afford an exterminator, call one. But you can certainly lick them yourself using either of the methods I said earlier. Another thing with c-ants is they like to find out where termites are living, kick them out, and take over their tunnels. Both insects prefer water damaged wood (easier to dig, and it provides moisture too), so if you have a nest, there is a good chance it is in water damaged wood. So, you might have a water leak somewhere you are not aware of. I discovered quite a few hidden leaky pipes, leaky gutters, roofs, bad chimney flashing, etc. in my time as a slayer of bugs. You might have significant structural damage to your house and not even know it. They can and will nest in pressure treated wood, I even found a nest in a big old cedar tree once. So no wood is immune to carpenter ants, no matter what the guy at the lumber yard says.
Here endeth the lesson.
Will they 'wake up" if brought in from the cold? Absolutley yes. They will go dormant in the winter, eventually either freezing to death, if in an unsheltered spot, or just die of starvation.If you have a fertile or fertilized queen ant in the wood, you've got the beginnings of a nest. If it's just a bunch of workers or warrior ants, you will have a pain in the posterior (and an angry wife) for a few weeks or months, until you kill them or they die naturally. They generally do not live more than a few months before dieing off.
If you have a queen ready to lay eggs? Brother, you got a problem. I have seen first hand the enormous amount of damage they can do. I recomend baits. You can mix your own out of Boric acid dust and powdered sugar. Just put it in little cups wherever you see the critters. If you have small kids or pets, I would NOT do this. Boric acid can be nasty if you get it in your kids eyes or up your prize hunting dog's schnoz. Bayer makes some really good bait stations with Fipronil as the chemical. Great stuff, used it at my own house after I brought home some carpenter ants with my firewood. Also used to use it alot on customers houses. Can take a little while to work , but will generally wipe out a nest completely in a couple of weeks.
For any of you geeks, I will splain how it works. When an ant finds food, it immediately eats it, and brings it back to the nest, leaving a pheromone trail to follow back to the source. It then brings it back to the nest, horks it up, where it is fed to the queen , young, and other ants. With the Fipronil, it stays in the ants system, and it will sweat it out. Ants constantly brush up against each other, so a poisoned ant will kill up to a dozen others by touch. Then, when it dies, it is eaten by the other ants, killing more. The other ants follow the pheromone trail laid out by the original ant, bringing more bait back to the nest. The food part of the bait is made up of all the favorite foods of your average carpenter ant, so they love to eat the stuff. I had a few bait stations completely emptied overnight at one customers house.
Do not mess around with carpenter ants. They can and will literally eat you out of house and home. Seen it too many times. They can do major damage if left unchecked. If you can afford an exterminator, call one. But you can certainly lick them yourself using either of the methods I said earlier. Another thing with c-ants is they like to find out where termites are living, kick them out, and take over their tunnels. Both insects prefer water damaged wood (easier to dig, and it provides moisture too), so if you have a nest, there is a good chance it is in water damaged wood. So, you might have a water leak somewhere you are not aware of. I discovered quite a few hidden leaky pipes, leaky gutters, roofs, bad chimney flashing, etc. in my time as a slayer of bugs. You might have significant structural damage to your house and not even know it. They can and will nest in pressure treated wood, I even found a nest in a big old cedar tree once. So no wood is immune to carpenter ants, no matter what the guy at the lumber yard says.
Here endeth the lesson.
greengiant
ArboristSite Operative
Thanks for all the great info. I've brought home a few pieces of ant infested wood before. I've sprayed some, stepped on some while splitting on the street, split some wood small enough to get them out before stacking, etc. But I've always wondered where they go after that, cause you can never really get them all. Makes sense now that they die off in a few months or in the cold. I just hope I haven't brought home a queen. I do have some issues with water behind the drip-edge on the roof, and down into the fascia, but I've never seen the ants climbing on the house. I was also told by an old-timer once that as long as I kept my firewood stacked, covered, and kept dry, I wouldn't have a problem with them, and I guess there must be some truth to that. As for those damn red squirrels.....now that's another story.
Around here the wrens love my wood piles
