HOUSE ANTS 



By E. A. Back, principal entomologist, Division of Insects Affecting Man and 

 Animals, Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine 



Several species of ants invade houses, getting into food supplies 

 and otherwise annoying the occupants. They all form colonies or 

 nests, in which remain the queen ants, which lay the eggs, and the 

 yoimg ants, which have to be fed by the worker ants. The workers 

 are the ants that are found attacking foods and crawling about the 

 house. They collect food and carry it back to the nest, where they 

 feed it to the queens and the young. Killing some of these workers 

 merely weakens the colony but does not affect the queens or the 

 development of the young unless so many workers are killed that the 

 colony's food supply is seriously reduced. In fighting ants, therefore, 

 the secret of success is to locate and destroy the nests, including the 

 queens and the young, for when this is done the other forms usually 

 perish. 



Ants With Wings 



Every now and then, particularly late in the winter, in the spring, 

 and early in the summer, ant colonies produce large numbers of winged 



Figure 1.— The little black ant: .4, Male: B. pupa; C female: D. female with win?-; E, worker: F. Lirva; 

 G, eggs; H, group of workers in line of march. A to G much enlarged, II about 3 times natural size. 



forms (fig. 1, A, D). These are the young queens and the males. 

 They swarm from the old nest, usually in considerable numbers, and 

 attract attention by their abundance. Most of them die without 



o Issued October 1937 



