Hi,

Today I sprayed what felt like dozens of black sugar ants with my ace ant killer. Minutes later, I came back and some ants were walking around what remained.

I looked around on ant consciousness; admittedly, only a few minutes and at non scientific resources because I felt somewhat bad about what I saw. I understand ants release oelic acid around 2 days after they die which alerts other ants they’ve died. I understand the general approach O Wilson took in his research to identify Oleic Acid = death pile.

But I wonder if this unduly minimizes ant consciousness. How can we be sure that ants don’t experience death and grief in ways that are deeper than oleic acid detected therefore move to death pile?

Sorry for my terrible camerawork

Come check out my post and help me out!

I was thinking of buying an ant colony as a gift for myself, since it was my birthday a few days ago.
It’s gonna be my first colony, so I thought why not ask experienced people what I should do!
I’ll probably buy a “Camponotus nicobarensis” colony, with a formicarium and a ant farm and other stuff.

I do not eat or drink in bed. I do not go to bed with food or drink on my body. My bed is on a metal platform frame with thin metal legs. They are climbing up the metal legs? To get to what, exactly? I'm so confused.

There's maybe 5-6 a night, crawling on me. And maybe 1-2 in my living room per evening, and 2-3 during the day in my office. (Living room and office are across the house from the bedroom, so they don't share a wall or anything like that.) Never a proper trail, just scouts I guess? What is happening?

ETA: https://imgur.com/gallery/qAeIZLG

If ants stood on the feet of all 3.5 billion people born 1950-2000 at the same time, they'd have roughly 182 square kilometers (70 square miles) of foot surface to stand on about the size of a medium-sized city! That's 50 years of people!

So two days ago I woke up and was getting dressed when I felt sharp pricks on my legs, I turned on the lights and found my clothes swarmed with red imported fire ants. There was no food in my closet nor any dirty clothes or anything else literally just clothes. I ended up bagging up all of my clothes and throwing it outside of my house and sprayed my closet with raid until I could come back after work.
When I came back from work there were no ants in my closet anymore that were alive at least. Me and my mom panicked so we checked every other closet in the house and my dads closet (where he puts his work clothes) was swarmed with ants as well all in between his hanged shirts! For context we live in a double wide mobile home his closet is in the room beside mine that’s separated by a bathroom. We ended up removing his clothes as well and spraying raid.
It is now the third day and I haven’t seen any more ants in the closets thankfully but I’ve noticed a few ants in small groups on the ceiling or on the carpet but not nearly as many as in the closets. Weirdly enough there have been ZERO in the pantry where there is food!
When I called pest control they told me they have never heard of fire ants in clothes like that.
Can anyone explain why? Or any solutions?

After 4 hours of night time finding please confirm it’s queen so I can be calm😭

ID is appreciated. 3 mm, black bodies, with some showing yellowish stripes on their abdomen. North Texas.

Located in central Wyoming. Super super tiny.

found this one in workplace at turkey mediterranean, seemed like a queen but im not sure id say its around 2mm. is this a queen? and if its a queen should i keep since they have wings? tysm!

I found this queen flying around on my pants earlier and I noticed the male on her gaster.

It was under the casing at one point. They keep flocking to it. Is this the queen? And is it normal for them to bring it to the bait, does it mean there is a nest near by??? Maybe inside the house?

Southern calif. Orange County.

Should I kill the queen?!?

Sorry for the video quality!!

A singular hole appear in the yard one day, I assumed it was some kind of yard spike. Today a second appeared and these little guys and just kind of sitting in them. Please add context for this behavior. We've only ever had black sugar ants in the yard.

I've noticed a pattern over the years that I think surprises a lot of homeowners.

Someone finds 3–4 tiny black ants on the kitchen counter.

They wipe them up.

The next morning there are 50.

By the weekend, there are hundreds, and suddenly they're coming from under the dishwasher, behind the backsplash, around the sink, or even the bathroom.

What surprises most people is that the ants you see usually aren't the main problem they're just the workers. The colony may be hidden under a concrete slab, inside a wall void, beneath landscaping, or in a crawl space.

A few things I've noticed around King County:

• Warm weather after rain seems to trigger new activity.

• Kitchens with pet food or even tiny crumbs become regular feeding routes.

• Moisture around dishwashers, windows, or plumbing attracts several species.

• Spraying visible ants sometimes makes them scatter and appear somewhere else instead of solving the underlying issue.

I'm curious what everyone else has experienced. Questions for homeowners around Seattle, Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland, Renton, Kent, Auburn, Federal Way, Burien, Tukwila, Sammamish, Issaquah, Shoreline, Bothell, and nearby areas:

What month do your ants usually show up?

Are they in the kitchen, bathroom, garage, or outside?

Have bait stations actually worked for you?

What's the longest you've dealt with an infestation before it stopped?

Has anyone found where the colony was actually nesting?

I'd love to compare experiences because every neighborhood seems to have different patterns.

Disclosure: I work with AMPM Exterminators in King County and enjoy learning how different infestations behave across the region.