J52 MISC. PUBLICATION 273, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 



These species differ from some of the other ant species in that the 

 queen of the carpenter ant works alone in founding a colony. An 

 interesting feature is that, from the time the queen builds her cell 

 and begins to lay eggs until a brood of workers mature, no food 

 is taken into the cell. This covers a period of about 10 days from 

 the laying of the egg to the larval stage and perhaps 30 days more 

 before the workers are mature and begin to carry in food. It is 

 generally supposed that the queen carries enough food within her 

 body to feed the growing workers, apparently by the process of 

 regurgitation. 



Carpenter ants are difficult to control, and at times all remedies 

 seem to fail. The first precaution is to prevent the ants from gaining 

 access to foundation timbers. Wliere timbers are placed on solid 

 foundations away from contact with the ground, the chance of 

 carpenter ant attack is greatly minimized but not always prevented. 

 The best preventitive is to impregnate foundation timbers thoroughly 

 with creosote. 



After a piece of timber has become infested, the colonies of car- 

 penter ants can be destroyed by injecting sodium fluoride, arsenical 

 dusts, carbon disulphide, kerosene, or orthodichlorobenzene into the 

 nests. The sodium fluoride is probably the most satisfactory, for 

 the ants will track through it and carry it to all parts of the nests, 

 whereas the liquids and gases are often blocked by the tortuous, 

 partly frass-filled cavities. If house timbers become badly infested, 

 it is often necessary to tear them out and replace them with timbers 

 treated with creosote. All decaying wood in the vicinity of the 

 buildings, such as old logs, etc., should be cleared away. 



LARGE CARPENTER BEES 



(Xylocopidae) 



Certain species of large bees, resembling bumblebees, excavate 

 large cylindrical tunnels in dry wood in building their nests. These 

 tunnels, especially where several colonies of bees build nests close 

 together, may seriously weaken building timbers and telephone 

 poles. The work differs from that of the carpenter ants in that 

 the burrows are partitioned into larval cells by chips of wood ce- 

 mented together to form circular or spiral discs. Several species 

 of these bees are found in California and the Southwest. 



TERMITES OR WHITE ANTS 



(Isoptera) 



The termites (^, 56, 73, 75, 77) are a very destructive group of 

 wood-boring insects that excavate large cavities in wood, and at 

 times so mine the interior as to leave only a paper-thin shell. In 

 the forest they are commonly found in the wood of felled trees, 

 in snags killed by bark beetles or fire, and in stumps or other sec- 

 tions of dead or decaying wood. Insofar as they reduce forest 

 debris they are beneficial, but they are exceedingly destructive when 

 they turn their attention to fences, telephone poles, buildings, furni- 

 ture, or other utilized cellulose products. The group as a whole 

 finds its greatest development in the Tropics, and in the United 

 States does the most serious damage in the warmer southern lati- 



