Dismantling our Cherry Tree Part Four: Carpenter Ants
It's been a while, but back to work!
I've been managing other projects the tree still needs to be cut down. Today is the day. What a surprise I had in store today.
As I was using the chainsaw, I noticed a black swarm of large ants, some winged and some not. You can see some of them in the video below:
As I am removing limb by limb, I notice that the center of the logs are hollow. Ut oh. Then I see a big black ant, carrying a little egg, staring back at me from the hollowed out part. Ut oh.
I was hoping to catch that big ant's icy glare on the camera, but he scurried back inside.
The more I opened up the tree, the more ants I saw.
Whenever I started up the chainsaw, a fresh scurry of big black ants showed up. I sliced off a chunk of the tree and I discovered a carpenter ant farm!
Ever get the feeling that ants are crawling all over you?
Watching all these big carpenter ants swarming around gives me the heebeegeebees. I don't want these creatures to get anywhere near the house, so they can make an ant farm out of the wood structure. That would not be a good scenario.
My oldest has been having fun eliminating the big black ants, especially the ones with wings. She decided using a hammer made the job much easier. A more merciful way to go than being squished between my fingers.
Have you had to deal with carpenter ants before? What's the best way to get rid of them?
Bless the Most High!
Have you been introduced to Menē yet?
Menē (Meen-nay) is a 24K gold and platinum investment jewelry company, where investors can trade their crypto-currencies for certified gold and platinum items. Preserve your wealth in precious metals and begin your Menē collection today.
Receive a $5.00 Gift Certificate using the link below:
https://mene.com/invite/YHDw
ALL PHOTOS ORIGINAL TO THE AUTHOR UNLESS OTHERWISE SPECIFIED.
howdy sir ironshield! we haven't had them personally but being in the real estate business for 12 years it was a common occurrence to find them and have them taken care of by professionals, it's too important to try and do it yourself but you don't have that problem if they are just in the that one tree.
as long as you keep your eye out for signs you should be okay or if you want to make sure you should have the pros come out for an inspection if the tree is close to the house, they cost much, I think usually $50-$75 and can save your house.
I've been wondering if we should have the house checked once we get the tree down. I think all the flying ones pretty much got squashed, so I doubt we have new colonies going up everywhere; and I haven't seen any ants at all in the house this year though we used to see a few before I got rid of the dead wood on our tree in front.
howdy today @lturner! hey do you guys have a basement? that's the easiest way to check for carpenter ants and I can tell you what to look for if you do.
Yes, we do have a basement - what should we look for and thank you!
howdy there lturner! sorry I didn't get to my comments very fast today. what you do is walk around and look at the top of the basement walls, hopefully the basement isn't finished right?
It the basement isn't finished you walk around and look for any dust type material on the wood at the top of the wall or going down the wall, if there are any spider webs those are excellent to catch that dust like debris that carpenter ants leave.
If you didn't know what you were looking for you would just think it was dusty. You also take a good sized screwdriver and poke that wood at the top of the walls, if it's soft then you rip some off or dig some out and then you'll be able to see signs like you did out in the Cherry tree but you guys
aren't going to see anything I'm sure.
The chances of them spreading to the house are very small.
if you do see damage, call the pros, they charge about 80 or $90 for inspection and $250 or so for treatment.
Thanks for the advice, @janton! I'll check the walls, but I haven't noticed sawdust like I had at the foot of the cherry tree, so hopefully all is still well.
yes Ma'am I'm sure you don't have any issues.
I know I am going to have to deal with these here soon. I am having a large hard maple tree taken down here soon and I know for sure that there are a bunch of them living in that tree, which I also believe is part of the reason the tree is dying!
When the tree comes down they are going to want to go somewhere....going to do my best to make sure they don't get to the house!!!
That's what we're dealing with. The ants are leaving their home, going somewhere. Hope they don't find a home in MY HOME. @ironshield
You got a plankton sized upvote from @worksinsane because your post appeared in the We Curate quality post search tool. It is a web art thingy thing that searches posts which fulfill predetermined rules. Upvoting isn't automated, @worksinsane reads posts before upvoting.
For more information read the latest post: https://steemit.com/wecurate/@worksinsane/we-curate-9