Along with the monsoon season we get another phenomenon called swarming. Ants and Termites will grow wings and swarm during the monsoon season. The reason for this is to create a new colony. They are like Christopher Columbus embarking on an adventure to find a new home. The good thing is only about 1 out of 1000 successfully accomplish this task. But it can still be a little disconcerting when you go outside in the morning to find these little guys crawling on your house.
When you discover these little winged creatures pay attention to where they are at. If they are out by the porch lights I wouldn’t get too worried. That is generally a sign of some termites that came into the lights from somewhere else out in the environment. If they are inside the house crawling on the windows, you may want to give your bug guy a call to take a look around. This can sometimes be a sign of a colony that is located in the structure. This year we have been called out on two jobs in Sedona and Cottonwood that had termite swarmers being found inside by the windows. When we looked a little closer both places had drywood colonies in the crawlspace area.
Another thing to figure out is, is it an ant or a termite? The easiest way is to look at the antennae. Ants will have a 90 degree bend in their antenna but termite’s antennae will be straight. Also, termites have four wings of equal length and ants have different lengths with the front two wings being longer.
