ANTS IN OUR CARAVAN

Ants in our caravan – a testing experience

Ants in our caravan appeared systematically and then became a flash flood.

We were camping under big trees at Lake Pleasant and had the usual slight irritation of small black ants in the cupboards and wherever there were something for them to eat.

There was still some damp left in the woodwork after we experienced leaks while camping at Harkerville. I re-sealed the whole caravan and the leaking was gone, but as can be expected, there would, for a time, remain enough damp for a nice, warm, cosy ant nest.

We baby-powdered them, Doomed them, and negotiated with them, but when we moved and arrived at Dibiki in Hartenbos, we suddenly experienced and aggressive influx of small black ants that walked along the inside of the roof surround after dark. I realised that the nest was well entrenched in the caravan somewhere.

They were clever enough to freeze and play dead when I shone a light on them but eventually they became flying ants flooding in and out of the woodwork.

A phone call later and I knew that one rarely finds termites in a caravan that is in use. One caravan company told me they have never experienced termites in a working caravan, and that I probably just had ant eggs that looked like termites.

Ants

Ants always look for the perfect place to build a new nest.

• Ants: Worker ants are female ants that are responsible for foraging for food, caring for the young, and protecting the colony. They are typically the smallest class of ant in a colony.
• Ant eggs: Ant eggs are typically oval-shaped and white or cream coloured.

Some additional details about ant eggs:

• They are laid by the queen ant.
• A queen ant can lay thousands of eggs per year.
• Worker ants care for the eggs by keeping them clean and moist and moving them to maintain a stable temperature.
• The eggs hatch into larvae after a few weeks.
• The larvae go through several molting stages before they transform into adult ants.
• Size: Ant eggs are tiny, typically around 0.5 millimeters in size, which is very small.
• Color: While ant eggs can have slight variations depending on the species, they’re generally white or translucent. If the objects are brown or black, they’re not likely to be ant eggs.
• Shape: Ant eggs are usually oval-shaped and smooth.

Flying ants or “alates” are not a separate species of ant, but rather sexually mature ants that have developed wings for the purpose of swarming and mating.

Some key facts about flying ants:

• Purpose of flying: Their primary function is to reproduce and establish new colonies.
• Swarming: They emerge from their colonies in large numbers, often triggered by warm, humid weather, to mate in a mass flight called a nuptial flight.
• Mating and colony establishment: After mating, the females shed their wings, find a suitable nesting site, and start a new colony. The males die shortly after mating.
• Threat: While they may be a nuisance, flying ants themselves do not pose a threat to humans or property. They do not sting or bite, and they are not interested in infesting your caravan.

What we saw were large numbers of flying ants in the caravan which indicated that we had an ant colony nearby who expanded into the caravan.

Some additional things to keep in mind about flying ants:

• Flying ants are poor navigators and can sometimes end up indoors accidentally, especially if attracted to lights.
• If you only see a few flying ants indoors, it’s likely nothing to worry about. You can simply vacuum them up or swat them away.

Termites

Contrary to what many people believe termites and ants are not friends.

They are not even the same species.

Black ants and termites can co-exist in the same environment, but they don’t offer reliable protection against each other.

Here’s what you need to know:

Black ants and termites:

• Predatory relationship: Black ants do prey on termites, considering them a food source. They may even invade termite nests to attack and eat them.
• Strategic feeding: While black ants attack termites, they won’t eliminate the entire colony. They strategically take what they need to sustain their own colony, ensuring a continued food source.
• Limited access: Black ants may struggle to reach the core of a well-established termite nest due to its defensive structures. Termites can also repair breaches in their nests, further limiting the ants’ access.

This addressed my concern that black ants could carry termites into the caravan.

The best way to easily distinguish between termites and flying ants is to look at the shape of the insect. Black ants have hourglass figures while termites are round without a defined waist.

How we conquered the ants in our caravan

Following advice from a Lankstaankamper on the Facebook group, we started with mosquito coils.

I emptied and closed the nose cone and burnt a whole mosquito coil inside. It took a few hours.

This got rid of the ants in the nose cone but they moved inside the caravan through every opening they could find.

We then burnt a mosquito coil in the closed caravan.

Yes, it did create a smokey smell in the caravan and some of our clothes, but that disappeared after a day and after we washed our clothes.

If we thought we had won the battle, we were seriously wrong!

The next morning the black ants were back, but they were all younger and smaller ants, and they were foraging like mad.

They carried all the eggs onto the beading of the nosecone and under the tent canvas that folds over the Scout’s roof.

I knew from the start that we would not get rid of the ants unless we killed the queen, probably by eliminating enough female ants to ensure that there were not enough ants left to care for the queen.

We then had little choice but to get ant poison that are carried into the nest. We opted for ProTek NIP-IT Ant Control:

I had to feed the ants twice with fairly large quantities, probably two hands full of NIP-IT pellets scattered around the inside of the caravan.

I took just more than a day for any trace of ants to disappear and for the poison the remain untouched. Up to that stage, the NIP-IT “crumbs” were all carried away by the ants.

Did we win against the ants?

At the time of writing this nearly a week has passed and we see no trace of ants in our camping home.

I suppose we won. But I understand much better now why we will never eradicate insects.

I gained a new respect for how Nature organizes itself and functions faultlessly to help all species to survive and prosper.

A hat-tip to tenacity of the ants … where they nest peacefully outside our caravan where they can cause no damage!

Ants are probably on of the threats you have in the maintenance of your caravan.