162 MISC. PUBLICATION 273, U. 8. 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. Where 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 (4, 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- 
ee ee 
