Carpenter Ants in Alberta??!!
Did you know we have carpenter ants in our area??
With over 1,000 species, carpenter ants are indigenous to many forested parts of the world. Here we tend to see a black variety, which is a bit unlike the red version most people tend to associate to carpenter ants.
Photo Courtesy the University of New Hampshire
Carpenter ants excavate nests in damp and decaying wood, carving out long galleries within the wood for the colony to travel within. They’re actually pretty attuned to finding decaying wood, so if you’ve seen some hanging around your yard chances are you’ve got some trees in decline!
Carpenter Ant Galleries in White Spruce
In our area, the white spruce have become a particularly preferred home for the ants. We’ve posted about the decline of our white spruce due the poor soil, shallow root structure, high water table, fungal root infections and external stressors like the spruce budworm. All of these stresses lead to interior decay within the heartwood of the tree, which is then exploited by the carpenter ants for a new nest.
Decay in a White Spruce Accelerated by Carpenter Ants
It’s important to understand this relationship, as it’s not the ant that causes the tree to rot and decay. The tree was already heading down that path, the ants merely assist it along.
It is possible to have carpenter ants take up a nest within the wood structure of your home. The occasional black ant in your home is fairly normal and doesn’t necessarily need to raise alarm. They’re often field ants who have wandered in looking for food, and don’t present much hazard to your home. If you’re starting to see a lot of ants with wings in the house or strange piles of fine sawdust, it’s time to speak with an exterminator.
Carpenter ants don’t eat the wood they excavate, they merely carve it out and discard it in piles of fine sawdust. These piles can occasionally be found at the base of a tree with carpenter ant activity, although often these piles may not be visible.
This particular tree was caught on a tree risk assessment. Upon sounding the tree it became very evident it was extremely hollow. A quick removal of some ground material at the base found a significant void entering up in to the tree. What’s worse, this tree was tall, heavy, and leaning hard directly over the garage. Once we were able to bring the tree down safely, the interior damage became readily apparent. Two inches of sapwood was all that was left on the tension side of this side of this tree.
As always, Red Mountain Rigging provides free no-obligation tree assessments to members of our community. This helps you understand the situation your trees are in, and often allows us to catch critically hazardous trees requiring immediate removal to ensure a safe and controlled process rather than a call to the insurance company! Get in touch with us today and we’d be more than happy to come by and chat!
You can also learn more about carpenter ants in Alberta at the following website:
Written by Sean Sterna - The Rocky Mountain Arborist & Used with Permission