I see pavement ants year round inside buildings, especially those with heated floors. A swarm with winged adults will last no more than 2 days. If you are seeing large numbers of ants and none have wings, it might be a colony fragmenting, or a colony fighting with a neighbor--these ants have large complex multi-queen social structures. Since my purview is live animal enclosures, there is always food available, so after sealing as many of the cracks in the concrete as I could find, if the issue persists, I apply Alpine WSG, a non-repellant insecticide which the ants track back into the nest on their bodies. That suppresses activity for 90 days or more. I would imagine in a setting that is less food-intensive, they would be destructive to anything with food value--dried insect collections, animal-based textiles, objects that contain sugar or digestible starches.
Jef Taylor IPM Specialist Zoo New England On Wed, Dec 11, 2024 at 4:03 PM Todd Holmberg <tholmb...@artsmia.org> wrote: > Hello Pest list- > > I am wondering if anyone in colder climates is experiencing pavement ant > "mating swarms" right now. I am in Minnesota and we have a heated area > that has a concrete slab floor with soil of some sort underneath. Pavement > ants (presumably) are coming up through cracks right now > in noticeable numbers. > > If you have experienced something like this, I would be interested in > hearing your thoughts: > > 1) How long did the "swarm" last approx? > 2) If you took action, what was it and did it work. > 3) What collection materials could be damaged by pavement ants if any? > > Any thoughts are appreciated- THanks! > -Todd > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MuseumPests" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to pestlist+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pestlist/CAMxAh%2BjPvn9tCLdaMZTY7dacq-fy8a0DfP_ihKbqaD1GWSZOWQ%40mail.gmail.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pestlist/CAMxAh%2BjPvn9tCLdaMZTY7dacq-fy8a0DfP_ihKbqaD1GWSZOWQ%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MuseumPests" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to pestlist+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pestlist/CA%2Bqio8X27iqdxWjKF1N0JDezap%3DxhgkyWZ%2B4wq7A9A6QRi6iQQ%40mail.gmail.com.
