This section provides information and advice on dealing with the eradication of ants from your home.
In their own outdoor environment ants have an important part to play and can generally be left undisturbed.
If ants invade your home however, they can make life a misery.
In this section you can find out what makes ants invade, how they get in, whether they are harmful and what you can do to prevent an ant invasion.
About Ants
While there are an amazing 36 species of ant to choose from in the UK, there are two kinds - the Black and Pharaoh's ant - which attract the most attention, when they invade homes and buildings.
Black Ants
Black, or garden ants are about 4mm in length and are a very dark brown, almost black.
During the summer large numbers of both winged females and males are reared in the nest or colony, usually underground.
On one or two warm summer evenings they swarm from the nest entrances and take flight.
During this brief flight they mate and on returning to the ground the males soon die.
The females shed their wings and dig into the ground forming a small cell in which to lay the first of many eggs. They spend the winter in hibernation before starting in earnest the following spring.
In favourable conditions the queen ant and her colony may survive several years.
Pharaoh's Ants
Pharaoh's ants are only 1.5 - 2mm long and yellow brown in colour.
They are thought to have originated in Africa and did not spread northwards until buildings became better heated. They first appeared in Britain in the 19th Century but are now widespread throughout the United Kingdom, although rarely encountered locally.
Unlike Black ants, flying swarms of Pharaoh's ants are never seen as mating takes place inside the nest.
An interesting feature they do share is that the ones doing the foraging, nest building and rearing - the worker ants are females. They are also excellent communicators when food is found.
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