Ants are spread right throughout Auckland and love to nest in the insulation in the wall cavities of houses. Ants send out scouts to scavage for food and when they find it they call in the troops for a feed. The best of the food is taken back to the nest and given to the queen. The queen can breed at a fantastic rate and will replace worker ants that have been killed off.
like all cold blooded insects ants are more active during the hotter summer months, but ants living in wall cavities can be very invasive in the winter as they are attracted by the warmth of the house and the availability of food.
Ants in Auckland fall into two major types, sugar ants which eat anything sweet and savory ants that are more attracted to the cat food than sweeter food.
One unusual type of ant found right throughout Auckland is the sand ant. These can be quite often seen on pathways as little mounds of sand that have been excavated. Sometimes spaces inside the roof cavity or even under the shower cabinet are packed solid with sand, each grain brought in by an ant.
AAA Pest Control use a two stage approach to controlling ants. Firstly we use a misting gun to put up a barrier to stop the ants coming inside and secondly we use ant cafe's containing a mixture of an ant pheromone and boric acid. The ants eat this and take it back to the nest and feed it to the queen. Once the queen is dead the nest will die off quite quickly.
The advantage of the ant caffe is that they last for months at a time and if another colony moves in placing the ant caffe's near them will erradicate the new infestation.