Pest Ants NZ, how to be an ant killer
Native are species in New Zealand are marvelous creatures. Most however are not pests that invade homes and businesses. These annoying pest ants are mostly imported pests that we didn't want.
They're organized, brave, strategic – and you may have heard about how certain ants NZ can lift up to 50 times their body weight.
But here's where thick streams of ants NZ aren't so marvelous: In your home, ant nests indoor and outdoors!
Ants NZ are among the most-common household pests in the world, parading through the kitchens, bathrooms and living spaces of city dwellers and suburbanites alike.
Of course, it's easy to dismiss their presence as a harmless nuisance, but when you find them in your loaf of bread, swimming at the bottom of your lemonade or worse, tangled in your hair, a line has to be drawn.
The good news? Ants are fairly easy to eradicate if you take the proper measures, with ant bait? Liquid bait in bait stations perhaps?
However, as with any pest, the more you know about them, the smarter you can be when it comes to getting rid of them.
Here's some tips on how to be the best ant killer NZ
1. Who runs the world?
Ants build sophisticated societies with a distinct and entrenched social order: The queen (or several queens, in some cases) is the colony's sole way to reproduce and most important member; the queen is guarded by a group of soldier ants, and the remaining population works to feed the colony.
Funny enough, most of the colony is female — crawling insects such as soldier ants and workers ants included. Male ants exist purely to mate, and then die shortly after.
Tip: Succession can be complicated. So when ridding your house of ants, your number one priority should be taking out the queen. Without reproductive resources, the colony will fold in no time.
2. Follow the leader
When you see ants marching across your kitchen counter in a straight line, it isn't because they think it looks fancy. Rather, each ant in the line is following a pheromone trail left by the first ant to ever travel that route. Pheromones are chemical signals that ants lay down to attract and guide other ants to locations, such as food sources. The more ants that use the trail, the stronger the pheromone scent becomes.
Tip: Pheromone trails make it fairly easy to predict where ants will enter and exit your home. Monitor popular ant thoroughfares and strategically deploy baits along those routes.
3. Only the good die young
You can have an ant infestation for a year and potentially never see the same ant twice. Ant colonies are built for longevity, and can survive as long as the queen continues to populate the community, but some worker ants, on the other hand, only have a life span of up to a month.
Tip: When controlling ant invasions in your home, it's important to focus on eliminating the source — not just the current wave making its way across your dinner table. Use baits to get active ingredients into the colony and kill ants where they hide.
4. Introducing the New York City of ant colonies
Each species of ant has its own unique chemical profile — kind of like a fingerprint — that allows colony members to identify their own and weed out intruders. However, that chemical profile doesn’t always end with a single "hill." Some ants, like the Argentine ant, have found their way into every continent on Earth except Antarctica. Since this species has multiple queens, it can bud off to inhabit a new geographic location, allowing a single colony to stretch across continents to establish massive populations.
Tip: Even if your baits successfully eliminate one colony, there may be others on the way. Once you've gotten ants out of your home, it's important to protect its exterior, both by shoring-up cracks and entry points as well as spraying barrier sprays.
5. They aren't just after your food
It's easy to get caught up in visions of ants escorting a full pot roast out your back door, but like most living things, ants are just as interested in your water as they are your food. Ants will both drink water they come across and transport some back to the colony to nourish the queen.
Tip: When ant-proofing your home, don’t just secure your food items — make sure the surfaces in your home, sinks included, are kept dry.
6. Creating a defense system is the best way to help control & kill ants
A sophisticated problem requires a sophisticated solution. As discussed, simply killing the ants you see will only help you in the short term. The best defense you can mount includes a variety of resources, including baits and on-contact sprays.
edited from an article by Mashable Australia
Want to be ant free contact ACES pest control