What Is Happening Outside Your Door
A mature ant colony raises a batch of winged males and young queens and holds them back until the weather suits. When the day is warm, humid and still, they leave together, and nests across a whole district tend to choose the same few afternoons. That is why the pavements, the car and the washing line all seem to be covered at once.
The flight lasts a matter of hours. The males mate and die; the mated queens drop to the ground, break off their wings and go looking for somewhere to start a nest of their own. Flying ants do not sting, they do not bite in any way worth worrying about and they are not a different, nastier insect. The full story of why they fly is in our article What Are Flying Ants?
Inside or Outside? The Question That Matters
A cloud over the lawn is the neighbourhood swarming and tells you almost nothing about your own home. A dozen winged ants on the kitchen window that came in through an open door are strays. Neither needs any treatment.
Winged ants appearing inside with the doors and windows shut are a different matter. They have to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is a nest in a floor void, a wall base or under a slab the house sits on. If you see them climbing out of the gap along a skirting board, from behind a kitchen plinth or up between floorboards, you have found the nest’s front door.
The one thing to do: before you clean anything, note the exact gap they came out of and take a photograph. Within a day the evidence is gone, and that gap is where treatment needs to go.
The Next Hour, Step by Step
- Shut the internal door to the room they are in and open a window. Most will head for the light and leave on their own.
- Mark the gap they are emerging from with a bit of tape or a sticky note.
- Vacuum up the ones on the floor and windowsill. It is quicker and tidier than spraying, and you are not leaving insecticide on surfaces where food is prepared.
- Wipe the floor and sills with ordinary washing-up liquid in water, which clears away any scent trail left behind.
- Leave the marked gap alone. Do not fill it with sealant today; sealing a nest entrance simply moves the traffic to the next crack.
If the swarm is outdoors only, the best thing to do is nothing. Keep windows shut for the afternoon, bring the washing in and wait. By the evening most of them will be gone, and the ones left on the ground will be wingless queens wandering off.
After the Swarm Has Gone
A nest that produced flyers indoors is established and will carry on sending foraging workers into the house for the rest of the season, then do the same next summer. It is worth dealing with now, while you know exactly where it comes up. The general method for tracing a nest from its clues is covered in how to find an ant nest.
Treatment goes in at the point they emerged: a gel bait pushed into the gap where workers will pick it up and carry it back to the queen, and a residual insecticide along the entry route and outside wall base where that is needed. Ant control in Newbury is a fixed £240, and the figure is confirmed with you before anything is booked, along with what the treatment involves.
Tell us when you ring about any children, pets, fish tanks or anyone vulnerable in the house, so we can plan where things go. Treated areas are kept clear until dry and for as long as we advise on the day.