Pharaoh ants are insects that have managed to inhabit vast territories of the planet for hundreds of years, while delivering a lot of trouble to humanity. They were first discovered in the Egyptian pyramids, for which they received such a specific name (with the light hand of the 18th century biologist Carl von Linnaeus). In fact, red-haired creatures came to Europe from India, on ships carrying spices. The first representatives of red goosebumps appeared in the ports of London and mastered quite rich houses, settling under stone slabs. Gradually, visiting guests penetrated far into the depths of the countries they were abandoned by chance, and began to adapt quite easily to new conditions.
Description of pharaoh ants
Pharaoh ants exist in colonies, up to a million individuals each. Their life expectancy is different: for males - about 3 weeks, for worker ants - 60-70 days, for females -queens - 273 days. A distinctive feature of this species of insects, whose body consists of 3 segments, are yellow stripes on the abdomen, which are not particularly noticeable due to the small size of ants (from 1.5 to 6 mm). Females are 1.5-2 times larger than working individuals, outwardly much darker than their counterparts, than they resemble familiar garden ants. Virgin queens are equipped with wings that are discarded immediately after mating. Worker ants are characterized by a light brown, closer to yellow body color.
The eggs of the larvae of this species of insects are about 0.3 mm in diameter, the sizes of the larvae (translucent, immobile and white) vary from 1.0 to 1.5 mm in length. The development of a worker ant from an egg to the state of an adult occurs within 36 days, females and males - 44 days. Males die 3-5 weeks after mating.
Features of existence
Pharaoh ants are accustomed to coexist next to humans and live in heated dwellings, as they absolutely cannot stand low temperatures. In winter, the number of people from the hot tropics is sharply reduced, and with the onset of summer days and comfortable temperatures (+25 … + 30 ° С) it increases significantly.
Outside heated houses, heat-loving insects cannot exist; with the onset of cold weather, they simply freeze out. Ants live in various corners of houses: under baseboards, floors, ceilings, in closets, in piles of things in pantries, in folds of clothes - in hard-to-reach places with an acceptabletemperature, which is extremely difficult for a person to reach. Most of all they prefer the bathroom and kitchen, they easily conquer the spaces of neighboring apartments. In terms of reproduction rate and quantity, pharaoh ants can compete with other insects: for example, they can populate a new 9-story house in a couple of years.
An anthill is characterized by an interesting structure: while it is small, it occupies an area of only a few square centimeters. When it grows, certain parts separate with the creation of additional nests in different places of the dwelling.
In nutrition, such insects are absolutely undemanding and eat everything that is edible. Most of all they like sugar and protein products, raw meat, sausages, milk, rotting organic matter.
Dangerous carriers of infection
Pharaoh ants, whose harm is obvious and understandable to residents of apartments and houses, are carriers of various infections: crawling through garbage, on their paws they carry pathogens (including salmonella, staphylococcus, plague and dysentery) and pathogenic microbes for food. It is possible, although rather difficult, to get rid of such insects: their anthill-metropolis can be located in several apartments, ants are able to move away from their nest at a distance of about 35 meters.
Provisions for survival are always enough for them: these are food stocks, garbage disposal, street organics. Therefore destructionone or more nests can go almost unnoticed for millions of settlements: pharaoh ants quickly develop new territories. How to remove uninvited guests from the apartment? What action should be taken first?
Where to look for domestic pests
It is important to destroy nests with egg-laying females at a time when the anthill is just beginning to develop and the daughter anthills have not yet been formed by insects. If you are lucky, and the lair of pests catches your eye, then it is enough just to vacuum it. But most often, nests are placed in hard-to-reach places (under wallpaper, behind a cabinet, under a baseboard, in piles of old magazines and newspapers, in unused electrical appliances), so finding them is not so easy. Understanding that worker individuals carry food for females, it is possible to destroy the latter, which will interrupt the food supply chain.
Three days - this is how much pharaoh ants can live without food. How to get rid of uninvited guests once and for all?
Boric acid in the fight against pharaoh ants
An effective tool in the fight against pharaoh ants is boric acid, the action of which, although slow, but effective. Gradually corroding the chitin of the insect, this drug kills it. During the action of boric acid, the working individual manages to deliver the latter to the nest, which destroys its inhabitants.
To prepare the product, stir a teaspoon of boric acid witha teaspoon of honey (or sugar with water) until a thick mixture is obtained. The composition is applied in the area of accumulation of insects and their paths. Gradually, the number of pests will noticeably decrease, as the process of poisoning ant females will begin. Boric acid can be combined with foods that ants love: mashed potatoes, minced meat, eggs. It is required to form balls from such a mixture and spread them around the perimeter of the room.
Folk methods of disposal
And yet, if pharaoh ants appeared in the apartment, how to get rid of them quickly and harmlessly? Pharaoh ants react negatively to yeast. Mixed with jam, they kill these tiny insects. Yellow crumbs are forced to leave the premises by the essential oils of some plants, namely elderberry, wormwood, walnut, peppermint, cloves, and tomato tops. Twice a month, with such infusions, you need to spray the places where insects accumulate, wipe the surfaces in the house and wash the floors.
Unrefined sunflower oil is considered to be a repellent insecticide, which is recommended to lubricate the edges of dishes with food. Natural traps are effective in the fight against ants: small containers with sweetened water, placed around the perimeter of the kitchen. Crawling into them, the ants drown.
Pharaoh ants defeated: how to get rid of
The photo shows how huge the labyrinths of anthills and numerous hordes of red insects are.
Therefore, in combination with folk methods, it is recommended to use chemical preparations. These are aerosols that needspray all surfaces in the house and, with particular care, places of frequent movement of insects. Gels can be quite successfully used against pharaoh ants - powerful insecticides, droplets of which are carried by forager ants into nests, which causes poisoning of a large number of specimens, including the uterus. The action of the gels is not instantaneous, but effective.
Insecticide crayons and dusts are widely used in the fight against harmful insects. Trying to clean their paws from them, the ants are instantly poisoned.
Preventive methods
In parallel with the use of chemicals and food traps, it is recommended to actively apply preventive measures aimed at preventing ants from entering the room: carefully cover all the cracks in the baseboards, between the floorboards, at the junction of the floor and walls. Be sure to maintain cleanliness, keep food waste in a closed form, treat with insecticides the way insects enter the residential building.
It is important to fight insects with the joint efforts of all the inhabitants of the house, the indifference and disinterest of individuals provides a huge chance for the survival and further reproduction of such tiny, but very dangerous insects as pharaoh ants. How to remove such uninvited pests from your territory? If the methods used are ineffective, it is worth contacting the pest control specialists - professionals in their field who, in a matter of hours, will help resolve the issue of getting rid ofunwanted guests.
