Controlling ants can be a difficult task that normally requires treating them where they occur or where they are likely to travel; therefore, there are many types of ant control products available such as ant bait systems, granular products for perimeter and mound treatment, liquid residual, liquid and water-soluble powder concentrates and aerosols.

Before taking action, an understanding of the life of the industrious ant will help you decide how best to proceed in eliminating them.

THE INDUSTRIOUS ANT
The world of ants is a microcosm, complete with caste or class hierarchies, rulers, wars, cultural preferences in foods, domestic work, child care, chores designated by gender, size and/or strength. The ability of ants to communicate with each other over comparative distances is remarkable, and it's been suggested that ants can perceive their environment based on interpreting distances, scents and texture along geometrical shapes. While ants are often considered the peskiest of pests and, after termites, the most destructive of insects, theirs is an ordered world and their predictability can help foster eradication.

All ants have a life cycle consisting of four developmental stages: egg, larva, pupa and adult. Each ant is consigned a lifetime role at birth:

Queens: There are very few fertile females to become queens. A queen can lay 1,000 eggs per day. If she dies, she is replaced with another queen. They live as long as 15 years.
Workers: The most numerous are the worker ants, which are infertile females, and they forage for food and repair the nests. It is also the workers' duty to protect the queen.
Males: The males die shortly after mating with the queen.
Soldiers: There is, in some species, a warring faction called soldier ants who will invade other colonies and bring back yet another species' eggs which, when hatched, are designated slaves who exist only to serve the individual soldier ants.

CARPENTER ANTS: One of the most destructive species of ants in the United States is the carpenter ants. They bore into moist but sometimes dry wood to build nests.

FIRE ANTS are a particularly virulent species with a sometimes deadly sting. Their mounds populate fields, roadsides and yards.

The PHAROAH ANT is the most common house ant. It will eat almost anything; because of its small size, it will penetrate miniscule openings into residences.
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