Last week I got a call from a Raleigh, NC homeowner who thought they had termites swarming in their kitchen window-sill.
January 31st is a little early for a termite swarm her in the Raleigh/Durham area so I went to check it out. It was actually carpenter ants. We have had some unusually warm days and the window was catching the full sun, making it warm enough to fool the ants into thinking Spring had arrived. We performed a simple treatment of injecting insecticide dust into the window-sill to eradicate the colony.
One thing to remember, the most common species of carpenter ants we have here in the Raleigh/Durham area, prefer wood that has rotted or become soft due to moisture. Keeping your gutters clean, your exterior caulking fresh, and replacing any rotted wood that you do find, will go a long way in keeping ants and other insects from nesting in your house.
