I’ve received a lot of questions this year about pest control here in the Warner Robins area, but one of the most common is “where did all of the ants come from?”.
The answer is a simple one really: The amount of rain an area gets has a lot to do with the amount of ants people see. No, they don’t fall from the sky in the raindrops like aliens in that Tom Cruise movie, but the more it rains, the more ants we see.
The majority of ant species here in Middle Georgia live under ground in tiny little tunnels and caverns with only a small mound visible above ground. This small mound that you see is used to help regulate heat in these tunnels and caverns so the actual “ant bed” is much larger than what you may think. The more it rains, the more saturated the ground gets and with that, the tiny little tunnels and caverns fill with water. Ants, being the social insects that they are, work tirelessly to move the colony to higher ground so they can carry on with their ant duties without the use of snorkels.
So, it’s not that there are more ants this year; it’s simply that they have moved to the surface so they are invading our yards and our homes.