“Liar, liar, ants on fire”
“Goodness gracious great balls of ant fire”
“The grasshopper and the ants that are on fire”
Anyway, this seems to happen at least once or twice every summer. I live in Los Angeles and when it gets really hot around here, say multiple days of 100+ weather, ants seem to just appear in our house.
This past week we discovered a bunch of ants in the kitchen. They didn’t look like they were really looking for food, they were very spread out on the counter. They were not in a line like how you’d imagine ants would be if they were taking food back, they were just all over the place. They gathered underneath a plastic dishwasher basin that had some water beneath it, maybe because it was cool and had water, I dunno. The counter was connected to the sink and some were inside. We poisoned them, wiped the counter clean, and I hosed down the dishwasher basin, but a few hours later they were back!
Did the ants come inside because it was too hot outside and they were looking for water? In colder temps, the ants actually look like they go after food, making a bee(ant?)line towards the garbage or anything that had been left out. I just find it odd that they weren’t really in formation and just hung around the house.
Don’t have a concrete answer but, during the summers, we always have ants in the bathrooms of our house and at work. I always assumed it’s the water they’re after.
When an ant finds food and heads back to the colony, it leaves a scent trail that lets other ants know “hey, i found some food here”. The more ants that find food there, the stronger the scent trail will be. I know the scent will eventually weaken and die entirely, but i am not sure how long it takes.
So I’m guessing that what happened is there WAS some type of food in the area where you saw the ants, but it is no longer there. The scent trail left behind by the first ant(s) is still there, so the other ants come running, but the food is gone, eaten or moved. There’s no way for the ants to put down another trail saying “sorry, false alarm, food’s gone”. So the rest of the ants followed the scent to the end, and are now running around looking for the food.
I am not sure if ants actually go out and gather water or not. They’d probably have to drink it and regurgitate it back home, which isn’t something I’ve heard of them doing.
We have that happen now and then here in the Phoenix Area (where we got 27 days this summer of more than 110 F).
I’ve sprayed outside the kitchen window with ant insecticide which helps temporarily, but a year ago I went to the hardware store and got ant traps. Little round disks with a spike-like thingie below. We drove several into the ground and nary an ant has ventured insides since.
Ants are actually quite mindless. That’s why it’s remarkable how “smart” the whole nest can appear to behave. Ants don’t head “towards” a food source; they just wander about completely at random until they find food. Then they lay down a scent trail on their way back, and that reinforces the behavior of other ants. Eventually, most of the ants will be marching in neat lines back and forth from the food to the nest.
I’ve got tiny ants these days, which one friend calls sugar ants and another calls grease ants. They do tend to come out when there is a dirty item left in the sink, and THE ANT TRAPS, THEY DO NOTHING.
I’m assured they are seasonal and will begone soon, but this is the first season I’ve seen them.
