Termites and Ants

Ants and Termites

I was at a home in Carlsbad recently, and the customer was worried he might have experienced a termite swarm. Luckily, he had snapped a photo of one of the insects. The moment I saw the pinched waist, I knew it wasn’t a termite at all—it was an ant.

Most people don’t realize that ants swarm too. They swarm for the same reason termites do: to start new colonies. The two are actually pretty easy to tell apart. Termite swarmers have broad waists, two pairs of wings of equal length, and straight antennae. Ant swarmers have pinched waists, two pairs of wings of unequal length, and elbowed antennae. Ant swarmers are usually black. Termite swarmers are dark brown. Drywood termite swarmers tend to appear in the fall and have red heads, while subterranean termite swarmers come out in the spring with dark heads.

Ants and termites are natural enemies. When ants invade a termite colony, termite soldiers rush out to form a defensive line while worker termites seal the breach behind them. Those soldiers fight to the death. Ants usually win through sheer numbers, but not before some of them lose legs to those oversized termite mandibles. After a termite fumigation, it’s not unusual for homeowners to see an ant infestation—the ants show up to feast on all the dead termites.

Since ants are so much more visible than termites, I often use them as an example of why over-the-counter termiticides don’t work. I’ll say: killing worker termites on contact is like killing ants on a trail. If you don’t get the queen, she’ll just make more ants. Termites are the same way. Unless you give the worker termites time to take the chemical back to the colony, the queen survives and your problem remains.

Ants are mostly a nuisance. Termites, on the other hand, will eat your house and rack up thousands of dollars in damage. Carpenter ants can chew wood, but they don’t eat it—they only move into wood that’s already compromised.

That couple in Carlsbad was relieved to hear their swarmers weren’t termites. Unfortunately, they still had a termite infestation. Fortunately, the ant swarmers prompted them to call me, and the termite activity wasn’t so advanced that it couldn’t be handled with a local treatment.