They are small and smelly, they have a line of conga straight to your sugar and they bring thousands of friends.
Behold, there are small houses with a smelly running.
It is known by many names such as Tapinoma sessile, Sugar Ant, and “A Darn Nuisance.” Smelling homes are small insects that residents encounter when they see new ant party, either on a long line or on a discarded fruit. They thrive and appear in many urban areas.
This spring they have completely invaded the Seattle area.
“At this time of year, there are all the perfect conditions: weather, moisture, everything you like,” said Luke Rambo, president of Rambo Total Pest Control. “They are busy, active and are trying to expand their territory.”
Smelling house ants have become one of the major ant pests in the Pacific Northwest for the past 10-15 years, experts say that the multikeene supercolonies will expand and become increasingly fascinated by living with humans. Unlike other ants, such as carpenter counterparts, smelly house ants are not destructive, but anyone who thinks they are flocking to them in flower pots and flour bags is known to them.
And in the case of ants marching one by one (hurray, hurray) across counter staircases and deck steps, hundreds of thousands of people hiding elsewhere.
According to Sam Dildae, a recent master’s degree from the Faculty of Entomology at Washington State University, natural environments like forests are small in colonies, with one queen and hundreds of workers. (Her original focus was on bees, but she said she was so tired of being stabbed that she moved to ant. They’re even better.)
However, in urban areas, there are humans who provide both food sources and threats, along with environmental pressures such as competition with other pests. Therefore, together with thousands of queens and hundreds of thousands of workers, they obtain multi-born (multi-series) super colonies and multi-series (multi-series) super colonies. A Seattle neighborhood can be the location of the tiny Ali Hoa, which shares urban blocks with each of the city blocks that share resources when the colony takes over.
Even when they count in the hundreds of thousands, these smelly homes have a unique and well-defined social structure. Within the colony, individual ants have their own work. Foraging ants, pantry or bathroom sink intruders represent about 10% of the population, bringing nutrients and hydration to the other 90% and can survive.
The Queen is a reproductive royal who feeds and cares for the worker ants. Once the colony is mature enough, a winged male – its sole purpose is to provide genetic material, and die soon – and in a process called budding, the female moves to another location and begins a new colony. According to Dildais, the process from eggs to worker ants can take up to 11 weeks, allowing five generations to be produced within a year in the colony.
The Ant Census released in 2022 estimated that there are 20 Quadrion ants around the world, according to a report published in the minutes of the National Academy of Sciences. With 8 billion people on the planet, there are approximately 2.5 million ants per person.
Ants are important in that part to the ecosystem. They act as degradation agents, nourish dead animals, promote soil, and spread seed-like materials.
“I know they can become pests, but there’s a lot we can learn from them,” Dildey said. “But if they’re in your house, I’ll get it.”
And one nuisance comes from the reason they are called stinky house ants – they produce odors from the anal glands, and when the ants are crushed they smell rotten coconut, or blue cheese, or a variety of unstable olfactory experiences.
Ants with smelly homes are more difficult to remove than other types of ants, pest control experts say. They are nomadic and social, so they get along with different colonies. They like to move frequently every 21 days.
“Whenever they find rich resources, “Yeah, let’s try to save energy by moving back and forth rather than going back and forth between the whole family,” Dildey said.
When other types are killed by chemicals or fight death, stinky house ants are at home in the loser’s nest.
“They are survivors, they’re tough,” Lambo said.
Ants are active all year round, but slows significantly in the winter at a dormant stage called dormant. Spring brings moisture, warmth and food sources, like aphids that eat plant sap. Ants are attracted to honeydew, a sweet secretion produced by aphids.
The winter last time was mild, with more ants still alive and now there is a growing demand for population size and colonies to nourish, said Matt Mendelson, an exterminator on the East Side.
Ants are the second-largest complaint in East Side pest controls after rodents, with each call bringing a slightly different mystery. Mendelsohn remembers one call to Redmond’s house. Complaint: Kitchen Ali. Evidence: Ali trails from the back door to the cabinet and counter, and old fruit ruins. He handled the outside of the house and thought he had resolved the severed case.
But after a week or two, Ali returned, this time in a slightly different location. Mendelsohn followed the path and discovered that there were multiple colonies. One was inside the drywall of the house, and the technician had to drill a small hole behind the wall to get the product. Another trail led them into a hut and into a colony of thousands of ants.
Mendelsohn pieced together what happened. The homeowners were using insecticides, which killed several ants in contact, but fought out other ants and split the colonies, so they created satellite colonies in various locations.
“It’s important for us as pest control providers. In They “know if they’re using insecticides,” Mendelsohn said.
Slow bait helps eliminate invasions, but requires patience. “The Queen is a colony,” so it would be useless to take out the foragingrs if the Queen is still there. The worker ants take their food and take it back to the chicks and the queen, spreading throughout the colony. The process can take several weeks depending on the size of the intrusion.
An easier option is to prevent intrusion in the first place by maintaining a buffer between nature and the house. Experts recommend cutting shrubs and branches near homes, so they won’t be on-ramps to the ants’ highway. Kitchen debris and exposed pet food attract ants as well as wet environments of spots like grooves and turbulence.
Once you see the ant trail, clean the area with soapy water to remove trail pheromones, Dildae said. However, she added that if ants are back or appearing to be growing numbers, it is best to call a pest control company. They are safe for humans and pets who understand the behavior of ants and know which treatment to use.
“If you don’t want a roommate, you might want to seek professional help,” she said.
