The swarming flight of the newly emerged males and females is a common sight on a hot sunny afternoon in July or August.

This flight is their mating flight and males and females mate whilst in the air. After a few days the males die off. The females bite off their wings and either return to the original colony or find a suitable location to over winter. Normally  by digging a tunnel under a stone, here she will remain until the following spring before she commences to lay eggs.

These eggs will start the new nest, they hatch in about 28 days, during this time the new young queen rests. When the larvae hatch she feeds them. This stage lasts about 23 days until new workers hatch, these new workers then start to nurse the new larvae, search for food and tend to the queen.

The workers lay scent trails as they move to guide other workers to food, this is why you often see them "marching" in such an organized way, this process carries on until the next mating flight and everything starts again.

 

We have been involved in professional Black ant treatment in its various forms for over 20 years. During this time the main technique used was a barrier spray technique whereby a liquid insecticide was  sprayed onto surfaces and would kill ants on contact.

Although every case is different and we do still sometimes use this technique, more and more we are using professional ant gel baits. In the past there have been many various gel formulations available but until now we feel they have not been that successful. Now we have Maxforce Quantum available and the  results have been fantastic.

 

Do not get this mixed up with anything you have  seen for sale in  supermarkets. As you can see from the photo which we took  in the back garden when we tested the product, ants find it highly palatable, Maxforce  Quantum’s unique non-drying formulation remains active for up to 3 months due to its exclusive bait matrix technology. Ants are drawn to the droplets to feed, before returning to their nest along with some of the droplet and subsequently eradicating the colony, suffice to say we have  been  extremely impressed with the results.