Pharaoh
ants were imported from the tropics
hundreds of years ago and have since
adapted themselves to living indoors.
They are very small ants, measuring from
1/15" to 1/12". Their coloring is light
yellowish to reddish-brown. To easily
distinguish pharaoh ants from thief
ants, look for the presence of three
segments in the antennal club. Sexually
mature individuals of both sexes bear
wings, but cannot fly; therefore swarms
are never seen. They are found in
localized regions throughout the United
States and all the way up to southern
Canada.
Pharaoh ants
prefer high temperature and
high humidity areas. They can be found
in homes, apartments, grocery stores,
restaurants, hospitals, and nursing
homes. Because of their small size and
appetite for many types of food, they
are a very hard pest to control.
Nests are rarely found, but they occur
between walls, above ceilings, under
floors, behind baseboards, in old trash,
and in folded linens. Outside, nests
occur in gardens and along walks. In
warmer climates, especially with high
humidity levels, pharaoh ants are most
commonly found outside. They can be seen
foraging and nesting on the sides of
buildings, in adjacent landscape areas,
or around sprinkler systems.
Unlike most other ant species, pharaoh
ants have many queens in a colony. The
ants develop in several colonies in
nests and live amicably together. The
colonies form one big aggregate nest
that may contain many workers--anywhere
from tens to hundreds of thousands. As
the nest becomes larger and larger, the
workers will evacuate the nest along
with eggs and larvae to begin building
new colonies. These migrations may occur
at any time of the year, whenever a nest
begins to become overcrowded.
Since the
ants are relatively unaffected by the
seasons, sexual forms are produced and
found throughout the year. A young queen
may lay up to 300 eggs. The eggs hatch
into legless larvae in 7 ½ days and are
fed by the queen through the process of trophallaxis. Unless searching for food
herself, the queen will stay in the nest
and rely on workers to find nourishment.
After 18 days, the larvae are fully
grown. Then, they enter a 9-day pupal
stage. The pupal stage leads to the
worker stage, which takes approximately
38 days to complete. The worker pharaoh
ants are sterile females. Their duties
to the nest include providing
nourishment for the young and the
queens. Also, they work to keep the nest
sanitized. Fertile males and females are
occasionally produced from large,
well-fed larvae.
Ant mating usually takes place in wall
spaces and crevices of infested
buildings. This mating is never observed
due to the fact that the sexual forms
are unable to fly.
The term "food preference"
is almost
inapplicable to these ants because of
their all-encompassing appetite. For the
purpose of narrowing the list, they seem
to have an affinity for syrup, honey,
cakes, jelly, fruit juice, greases, dead
insects, meats, and blood.
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