Common Garden Ant (Lasius niger)

Garden ants are a species that can be found living in the soil in your garden as equally under a solid concrete floor of your conservatory or in a cavity wall near a radiator. Nest can last many years with only one queen per nest.

Young queens leave the nest each year as flying ants and set up new nests, it is usually the sexually infertile females (the workers) that are seen away from the nests. these workers are very active in foraging for food sources and are diverse in their diet, sweet substances, insects, seeds and aphid secretions are all on the menu.

There are various treatments available for the control of common ants, dusts, residual sprays and aerosols may be used along side of proofing by means of blocking and sealing holes around pipework, cabling and skirting areas.

Pharaoh’s Ants (Monomorium pharaonis)

Unlike the common garden ant the Pharaoh’s ant is a tropical species found only in heated buildings in the UK and is associated with hospitals, prisons and increasingly in housing blocks. Pharaoh’s ants have many queens per nest, these nests are often large and unstructured in cavities, heating and electrical ducting.

Infestations can spread rapidly by “budding” of the workers or queens with a brood to create satellite colonies. Pharaoh’s ants need access to water and can travel between buildings freely using ducts and cavities, the feed of a wide range of foods and may carry diseases for contamination of foods to sterile environments.

Control can only be achieved by baits, gels are extremely effective if placed along the ant trails from nests to food sources, the use of residual treatments is not to be considered for he control of pharaohs ants. proofing and blocking of holes will only move them around the building.