Ants may be tiny, but as a pest, they can be an incredible nuisance. Some scientists rank them as the most difficult household pest to get under control, and plenty of things are working in their favor. For instance, they have incredible strength, lifting as much as 50 times their body weight. And they can work together to carry bigger objects as a group, allowing them to be extremely efficient foragers. They’re also one of the longest-living insects on the planet, with some species reaching up to 30 years.

The most common type in California is the Argentine Ant. Scientists believe eradicating this species is impossible because their nests cover the state as a huge “supercolony.” They go after insects as a meal but enjoy fruit, which draws them to picnic sites, classrooms, and kitchens. They typically make their way into your home or office because they’re looking for food, water, and shelter. Once they realize they’re comfortable on your property, they stay.

Red Imported Fire Ants are another major problem. They arrived in the United States around the 1930s and reached California in 1998. Scientists have found numerous colonies around the Central Valley because they’re drawn to agricultural sites, which are plentiful in the area. They can be bad news for crops and the average garden. They’ve also been known to infest electrical equipment, causing malfunctions. Fire ants are most well-known for being aggressive and packing a painful sting, with burns and itching as a regular response, and in those who are allergic to the bites, it can lead to hives, chest pains, and difficulty breathing.

One of the reasons they are so difficult to eliminate is that they reproduce at incredible rates. A single queen can lay up to 800 eggs daily, leading to colonies with over 200,000 ants, including workers, soldiers, drones, and queens. That means if you killed one every second of a 24-hour day, it would take you two full days and the next morning to kill them all.

Even then, a new colony can start in various ways. Some do that by having a winged queen fly off, find a good nesting site, and start laying eggs; some have multiple queens who move around to start their individual groupings. Ants spend less than a week as an egg and only take about six weeks to become full-grown adults. They grow up quickly, too.

It takes a full pest control program, including examining the property to find the source (or the colonies), sealing up entryways, and preventing other access points like tree limbs and bushes to keep them away for good. Sometimes, you may need to reevaluate how you store food or where moisture may be seeping into your property to keep the pests at bay.

At Alpha Charlie Exterminators, we like to show off our company’s name as an acronym: ACE. That’s because when it comes to pest control, we’re Aces. You won’t find a company with more dedicated technicians, better technology, or more up-to-date pest control programs. We promise customer satisfaction and reasonable rates so our clients can feel secure in their homes and businesses. Contact us today for an estimate.