When it comes to black ants in Sydney, Jim’s is your local specialist. Our techs servicing the area are experienced, fully trained, and insured. You can trust the Jim’s name to help you with any pest problem.
If you need to get in touch with us, simply call 131 546 and our friendly staff will take your details.
Black ants are quite common in Sydney homes. Almost every yard has them and when outside they do a great job of consuming dead insects.
They scurry along the ground on the hunt for easy food sources. When they come across a bee or other insect, they can take them down easily.
By biting the insect, they can deliver a paralysing chemical will inhibits them from getting away. Once one black ant has locked onto their prey, more will soon join in.
Once they have killed the insect, they will carry it away using brute strength.
So, while they are good for the environment, they can be annoying to humans.
Can black ants kill termites?
An old wives’ tale is that if you have black ants then you don’t have termites.
This tales has been developed around the fact that black ants will attack and kill termites. They do this as the termites are a rich source of protein.
However, this is where the wives’ tale stops. Ants should be though more like farmers rather than assassins. The reason being is that ants will tend to harvest termites rather than assassinate them.
Ants will attack a termite colony but are only able to kill and capture a very small proportion. A strong termite colony can be 400,000 strong and their numbers would simply outweigh the ants.
So, when attacking a termite colony directly, the termite casualties will have no dramatic effect.
Termite defence against black ants
Termites have some unusual defence tactics against black ants. One of the main ones they deploy is for soldier termites to stick their heads out of breaches.
They do this as the soldier’s heads are very hard and the ants can’t inflict any damage. For an ant to be successful against a termite they must attack from behind.
It’s not all good news for soldier termites. Workers will rush to the area to rebuild the mud shield that has been damaged. They do not move the soldier termites out of the way, rather they just mud up around them.
Yes, the soldier termites are sacrificed to save the colony. If you look closely at termite mudding, you will often see this.
When rains come, they move to higher ground
Often black ants will know when the rains are coming. They have the sixth sense about them when it comes to rain.
You will see their behaviour change. For instance, they may build mounds around nest hole entrances. If they think it is going to be flooding rain, they will often move the whole nest.
This is often when Jim’s Pest Control Sydney gets phone calls. Clients come home to find a whole army of black ants on the move. When this happens, they can be difficult to treat as their priority has changed.
Our technicians know how ants behave and will have an effective solution to any black ant problem.
