The art of ant exterminators: what you need to know

There is an art to being an ant exterminator. Anyone can get a can of bug spray and give the ants a couple of shots and hope they’ll go away and not come back, but they always come back because you have to exterminate the colony. That’s the hardest part: getting to the queen of the anthill.

Ants are one of Mother Nature’s most amazing insects. They are natures cleaning crew. They can carry 25 times their own body weight, the queen can live up to 30 years and they clean up other insects, leaves, fruit, aphids and any dead creatures. The colony has a queen ant, worker ants, and male ants, and the worker ants can live up to 3 years. Male ants have a small lifespan of a couple of weeks, but they do their job very efficiently in that time.

There may be millions of ants in each colony and they will park their colony wherever they can. That means on your walls, concrete slabs, sidewalks, lawns, bathrooms, and kitchens, just to name a few places. So how does an ant exterminator get rid of ants? The first step the exterminator will take is to identify the type of ants you have. There is a plethora of different ants. Such as carpenter ants, sugar ants, fire ants, ghost ants, fat-headed ants, thief ants, pharaoh ants, and acrobat ants. There is even an ant called the crazy raspberry ant. They can all be exterminated, but different methods are needed for each species.

When the company you call sends their ant exterminator, they will check your home for infestations. If they just spray some pesticide then they don’t know what they’re doing. Your ant problem will only go away for a few days and then they will be back in force. Ants have ways of finding new routes to their food supply. If the queen is not killed, the ants will return.

Ant nests are usually hidden from view or deep in the ground with many chambers. They keep the egg and queen chambers well protected. Using gas or boiling water with insecticide is an unpredictable type of treatment.

It can force the ants to move the nest and regroup for their next attack. Also, the gas and scalding water could damage plants and grass around the nest. Exterminating ants requires patients and a good exterminator.

The ant exterminator will find where the ants live and use a two-step method to eliminate them. The first step is a non-toxic pesticide application and the second step is a drench.

The first stage spreads the pesticide near the nest. They will take it back to its nest to feed it to the general population and hopefully the queen. This will cause the queen ant to become infertile and the queen will no longer be able to lay eggs. This first stage is designed to kill as many ants and eggs and possibly the queen. This step should take place in the summer or fall, when the ants do most of their foraging. The ants will choose a new queen if she dies.

The second step is necessary to remove the colony completely. The second stage consists of massive soaking. The ant exterminator will use an organic liquid pesticide that is applied liberally to the nest. This should kill any remaining ants that survived the first stage. In Texas they call it “Texas Two Step” and they use it to kill fire ants. It can be applied to all types of ants and is the most effective way to kill the entire colony.