Courtesy Conn. Agric. Exp. Stn. 
Figure 206.—Black carpenter ant, Camponotus 
pennsylvanicus: A, adult winged female; B, adult 
winged male. 
Live trees are infested occasionally but usually only when the ants are able to 
enter through cracks, scars, knotholes, and decayed or other faulty places. Once 
inside, they remove faulty wood and often extend their galleries into adjacent sound 
wood. A wide variety of trees such as poplar, cherry, eastern white and pitch pines, 
balsam fir, elm, willow, and red, white, scarlet, black, and post oaks have been 
infested. Infestations frequently are located near the base but may occur very high 
in a tree. Infested trees are often subject to serious injury. They are frequently 
weakened to the point that they are subject to windbreakage. The wood also may be 
rendered worthless for lumber or pulpwood (fig. 207). 
Often houses are invaded by carpenter ants coming from nearby nests. This 
happens frequently where houses are located in the vicinity of trees, logs, or 
stumps. Entry is frequently gained through openings around the foundation of the 
house or from tree branches in contact with the house. The woodwork may be 
attacked in any number of places, but the most commonly damaged parts are 
supporting timbers, porch pillars, sills, girders, joists, studs, window casings, and 
external trim. The galleries are similar to those constructed by termites except that 
they run across the grain, are sandpaper smooth, and free of frass. Evidences of 
infestation are the presence of large black ants running about the house, swarms of 
large black, winged ants about the house in spring, piles of sawdustlike borings, 
slitlike holes in woodwork such as window and door casings, and faint rustling 
sounds in walls, floors, woodwork, and flush-panel doors. Where infestations are 
of long standing, damage to structural timbers may be severe and require extensive 
repairs. Telephone and telegraph poles also are subject to serious damage (fig. 208) 
(451). 
430 
