For permanent control you need to get rid of the whole colony.
Ant colony in attic.
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When you see an ant your first impulse is probably to step on it.
It is important to check insect traps regularly and refresh them periodically to ensure they continue to be effective.
A mature carpenter ant colony can have 10 000 ants so random spraying will be ineffective.
While it would be unusual to have an entire colony in your attic it is not unheard of.
Dry wood termites on the other hand look a lot like ants and would have more reason to be in your attic.
Use these scouts to wipe out the entire colony.
They are brown or black and about half an inch long.
Carpenter ants have built a reputation for shaving through wood making holes and tunnels that damage it.
They prefer warm regions.
Ants will build nests where ever they can find a suitable area to do so.
The ones you see are scout ants foraging for food to take back to the colony.
All types of ants live in colonies that consist of hundreds or even millions of individual ants with one or more egg laying queens.
Ants could damage your attic in as few as six months.
They will bring the bait back to the colony to share which will help destroy the colony.
Beyond that only 10 15 of the colony is foraging at one time.
I would defiantly take a closer look at these ants.
Below is a list of common ants that may nest in walls with some tips on how to identify them.
It sounds a bit out of character for ants to be in your attic they generally only are found in places that have a food source of some type.
Significant ant colony in an attic.
Prebait ants in areas you ve previously seen them.
These ants actively excavate wood.
The good news here is that the ants are visible to you and they are still going outdoors to forage which means they will walk through areas that that you treat outdoors.
A single ant colony could have as many as 50 000 individuals.
Light brown these ants are between 1 12 and 1 8 inch long.
Some ants are more attracted to sweets and some to fats and oils.
Ants become dwellers inside walls and other voids simply as the result of finding a more preferred site for food moisture and protection than what is available to them outdoors.
However carpenter ants maintain a system with a main nest and satellite colonies.
What you must do is find the nest and eliminate it.
You ll kill it but for every ant you see there may be hundreds more hiding in the house.
Baits have the added advantage of being easy to place and relatively mess free.
These ants are about 1 8 inch long and range from pale brown to black in color.