Why do I keep getting Argentine Ants in my home?

Argentine Ant on a Hand in Fairfield, CA

Written by Josh Stevenson, owner, 11 years experience.

Intro

All ants are tough, in fact ants comprise the highest call back rate in the pest industry. I’ve only really dealt extensively with the Argentine Ant because in the Bay Area and Napa Area, this is by far and away the most common ant we see. We do get the occasional Velvety Tree Ant, Pavement Ant and Odorous House Ant and I’ve read that there are a few other ants companies deal with in California but the Argentine is king when it comes to interior infestations. If you live in the Bay Area or in/around Napa and have ants in your house, there’s a high chance it’s Argentine Ants.

They Just Keep Coming

Unfortunately no matter how good your pest tech is, or how good you think you are at pest control, there’s a chance the standard protocols we use won’t work on every house. The majority of houses we treat have success early on and either never deal with ants again or get them much less frequently than before (at which point they call, we come, we destroy). In those cases, there are other methods to employ and it’s possible the ants are nesting in your walls or somewhere else that’s hard to find. These methods include using dusts, foams, varying up the type of bait, spraying inside, etc. The thing that makes Argentines so tough is the fact that they really don’t have one solitary colony like most ants. There are multiple colonies around your house and they are all considered to be a super colony, meaning they are separate but related and the colonies don’t fight each other but cooperate. This makes treating them exceptionally difficult. You can kill off one colony, say the one that’s getting into your kitchen and weeks later another one finds the pheromone trail left behind and goes right back into the kitchen. Argentine Ants are incredibly adaptable, have massive colonies with multiple Queens and sub-colonies (can be millions of ants per colony) and feed on a variety of foods including fresh fruits, sweets, oils in homes, honeydew and buds of some plants. Getting the picture as to why they can be tricky to prevent?

How Can You Stop Them

Here’s the rub when it comes to DIY pest control for Argentine Ants. It works until it doesn’t. Some people will have success with over the counter baits but when we get the call, it’s often because a customer has tried those and it stopped working or they’re just getting tired of fighting the ongoing ant issue. There are some things you can do that will help and maybe even prevent having to pick up the phone to call a pro. First off, Argentine Ants really love fruit trees. In order to stop them from getting to the fruit, make sure you are picking up fruit that drops on the ground. In addition you can wrap your trees with a sticky wrap used for bugs like this one - https://a.co/d/2vqPvtx to stop them from getting to the fruit in the trees. In addition to the fruit trees you should keep an eye out for trees that always produce honey dew. If this is happening, the honey dew is a result of other issues (often aphids but can be other insects). These honey dew-producing insects are actually protected and tended to ants. If you want to read a fascinating article related to the ant-aphid relationship, check it out here - https://www.thoughtco.com/aphid-herding-ants-1968237

Apart from the trees in your yard you can also try using over the counter baits and sprays. The baits we see from hardware stores tend to not work well at getting the bait to colony which is what’s really needed. The ants typically die too quickly resulting in a bunch of dead ants at the bait stations and maybe a temporary pause in the ants getting in but then another wave soon thereafter. The sprays found at stores also don’t tend to have a very long residual. Meaning when you spray it, it breaks down fairly quickly so you have to really stay on top of the spraying to keep the ants away. If you’ve read up to this point and are ready to tear your hair out, call us. We’re happy to help! We have products that work much better - bait that kills slowly, sprays that last long and more. Ok, enough sales and marketing. If you want to try the bait/spray approach yourself, I would bait heavily every day with whatever they have at the hardware store. Bait inside where you see them and outside as well. As soon as you see no more activity, spray the perimeter of your house. You’ll most likely have to do this monthly for a while.

The last thing to make sure you do is clean your kitchen very thoroughly. I have seen Argentine Ants go to a ton of things in the kitchen. If it’s sweet, they’ll most likely get to it. They do sometimes go for protein and oily products as well. Best bet is to wipe your counters daily and especially right after cooking or preparing food. If you have kids, it’s exceptionally difficult but you must be diligent. If you currently have ants and want to try getting rid of them yourself, find their food source by carefully following the trail until it stops inside somewhere. Once you find it, throw that thing outside, and put bait in it’s place. I always recommend not wiping the trails as the ants will sometimes put out an emergency pheremone as they die and the other ants will sometimes find another place to trail in (sometimes in a more difficult place). If you are patient, you can get them to take the bait back to the colony and kill the whole colony instead of just a few.

Last note - DON’T use raid or any other contact kill spray for ants inside. This does a great job at killing the ones you see but it doesn’t kill the colony. Worse you may even be fracturing the colony making it even harder to kill them off.