Ants do not consume wood for nutrition because they lack the necessary digestive enzymes to break down cellulose. Instead, these insects are specialized excavators that tunnel through wood to create sheltered nesting sites, or galleries, for their colonies. The damage they inflict is purely mechanical, resulting from carving out space for habitat rather than seeking a source of food. This distinction between hollowing out a structure and actively digesting it is important for assessing potential threats.
The Difference Between Eating and Excavating
Ants use their strong mandibles to shred and remove wood fibers during excavation. They chew the material but do not ingest it, instead pushing the debris out of the nest through small openings called “kick-out holes.” This mechanical removal results in a byproduct known as “frass,” a tell-tale sign of their presence.
Frass is a mixture of coarse, ragged wood shavings combined with ant excrement, shed body parts, and other refuse materials. The ants create these large, smooth-walled galleries for habitat expansion, often starting in wood that is already soft from moisture damage.
Identifying the Ants That Damage Wood
The Carpenter Ant is the species responsible for nearly all ant-related structural damage. These are among the largest ants found in homes, with workers typically measuring between 6 and 12 millimeters in length. They can be black, red, or a combination of both colors.
Carpenter Ants possess a distinctly pinched waist with a single, noticeable node connecting the thorax and the abdomen. Their antennae are also bent or “elbowed.” If winged swarmers are observed, their front pair of wings will be visibly longer than their hind pair.
How Ant Damage Differs from Termite Damage
The most reliable way to determine the pest is by examining the damage itself, as tunneling and debris patterns differ markedly between ants and termites. Carpenter Ant galleries appear clean and smooth, almost sanded, because the ants remove all debris as they tunnel. Their chambers often follow the grain of the wood.
Termite tunnels, by contrast, are rough, muddy, and often contain soil or mud lining the walls. The fecal matter of drywood termites forms uniform, six-sided pellets that resemble small grains of sand. This is chemically distinct from the irregular frass produced by the ants. Flying termites, or swarmers, have two pairs of wings that are equal in length, unlike the unequal wings of the ant swarmers.
What Carpenter Ants Actually Consume
Since wood is merely a building material, Carpenter Ants must forage for actual food to sustain the colony. They are omnivorous scavengers that rely on a diet rich in both protein and sugar. Proteins, sourced from living or dead insects, are necessary for the development of the larvae.
Adult ants primarily seek out sugary liquids for energy. This includes the sweet secretion known as honeydew, produced by aphids and scale insects, as well as tree sap. When foraging indoors, they readily consume household sweets, syrups, fruit juices, and accessible pet food.