SCIENTIFIC NAME: Tetramorium caespitum

SIZE: 1/10 to 1/8 inch (2-3mm)

COLOR: Brown to black

DESCRIPTION: The pavement ant is a small, brown to black ant with pale legs and a black abdomen. Pavement ants feed on a variety of materials, including live and dead insects, honeydew from aphids, meats, grease, etc. They often enter houses looking for food. They may become numerous in a short period of time in a kitchen or outside on a patio.

HABITAT: Pavement ants are very common in the eastern United States. These small, brown to black ants usually nest under stones, concrete slabs, at the edge of pavements, and in houses in crevices in woodwork and masonry.  Mounds are built along sidewalks, baseboards, and near foundations in clusters.  Colonies tend to be found near water.  There is usually only one functional queen per colony.

LIFE CYCLE: New colonies usually typically begin in early spring with mating flights.  The larges infestations occur during the summer.  New ant colonies are started by a single queen that lays the eggs and tends the brood that develops into worker ants. Tending of the brood is then taken over by the workers, which shift the brood from place to place as moisture and temperature fluctuate in the nest. When workers forage for food for the queen and her young, they often enter houses and become a nuisance.

TYPE OF DAMAGE: They feed on animal food, grease, seeds, etc.

CONTROL: The nests are often difficult to locate, so control is usually aimed at individual ants or groups of ants.

Non-Chemical Control: General sanitation. Eliminate food sources. If an ant finds food they recruit hundreds more as long as food is available. If the food is removed ants will be forced to look elsewhere and should stop the habit of coming indoors.

Wash trash containers, recyclable items, clean up all spills.

Seal all food, especially sugar containing products in tight fitting glass or plastic containers.

Caulk entrances and points of entry to keep ants outdoors.

Winged ants can be cleaned up with a vacuum.

Chemical Control: Special considerations - Ants live in colonies that may have thousands of individuals. Only the queens can lay eggs. To control ants you must find the nest and kill the queen. This can be done as a spot treatment or with baits that are taken back to the colony.

Soapy water will knock down workers that are present. Individuals can then be wiped up.

Ant baits are the preferred in schools. Workers will take poison back to the nest and feed it to the young and queen. Some ant baits are for sweet feeding ants, some for protein feeding ants, and some for both types. Active ingredients will include less toxic products such as boric acid, sulfuramid, abamectin, hydramethylnon and fipronil. Baits come in plastic stations, gels and pelleted baits. Different treatment sites will require different formulations.

If colonies are found they can be spot treated. In walls, insecticide dusts containing synthetic pyrethroids, boric acid, drione or silica aerogel can be used. For outdoor nests drenches, of labeled insecticides are the most effective. Use at least 1qt. of water to move mixture deep into soil where the queens are found. Disturb the site before treatment, drench, and then cover the surface with untreated soil. Synthetic pyrethoids can be used.

INTERESTING FACTS: Ants feed on almost anything consumed by humans.