Several types of ant can be found in the UK

Black (or Garden) Ant

Ants nests are found in flowerbeds, under paving and at the base of walls. Worker ants usually invade properties in search of sweet food substances during the spring and summer months. The Queen (winged) ants leave the nest to relocate during hot summer afternoons. This can cause huge amounts of concern when at anyone time thousands of flying ants can take to the air.

Myrmica rubra and Myrmica ruginodis (red) Ants

Slightly smaller than the common any Red Ant nests are commonly found in garden areas, typically under paving stones or slabs. The red ant can deliver a painful sting which is injected with formic acid. Each nest can last for many years with up to 1000 worker ants at any time with all eggs being laid by a single queen.

Pharoah Ant

Indiginous to tropical regions the Argentine ant has readily taken up residence in the UK and across Europe favouring warm heated buildings. Measuring around 4mm long the ants are yellow in colour and quickly spread as they are continually foraging for both food and new nesting sites. Unlike most UK species these colonies are highly mobile with multiple queens within the same nest making treatment very difficult as traditional localised control methods does not kill all breeding sites and will cause the colony to scatter and form multiple new colonies making the problem worse.

Treatment

Nest in soil can be far more extensive than the area around the surface and an effective treatment is professional spraying although where possible it is best to leave nest sites alone if they are not a hazard.

Within the house nest can prove far more of a problem and there are several products available from Millennium pest control that can help to eradicate nest sites or provide a barrier to insect entry.

Pharoah ants should be treated professionally with multiple methods employed to track and eradicate all queens within a building. Please phone our freephone contact number 0800 0854460 to arrange a survey and book a treatment.