Carpenter ants in my rounds

Split them and the ants will go away

Kill them with fire.

Im not good with letting the ants just crawl away when you crack the round open. I grab a can of ant spray.
Also stack the wood seperate from clean wood. But when you are splitting you can open their tunnels up by splitting small on those splits to better insure you arent carting them in with you.
Those are my precautions, they arent necessary for others, but I stack a fair amount of wood inside. The bug infested goes straight to the fire.

Carpenter ants usually reside in wet and rotting wood. Once the wood is dry, they go elsewhere.

When I split infested wood, I may step on those I can, crush others with the splits or rounds, but mostly, I just continue splitting and stacking. If they are troublesome, some sort of ant spray or better yet Boric Acid with a carrier like flour. Or pre made stuff like Pic Orthoboric Acid Ant and Roach Killer. Just dust the splits and check the dead the next day.

If you have carpenter ants in your stacks, then your wood is wet/moist/rotting which would mean you really need to cover the stacks.

If it's cold where you are splitting, I doubt if they will survive now. They have no where to go without their Queen.

I had a hollow maple taken down and found carpenter ants throughout the lowest two or three rounds. The tree was far enough from the house so I just stacked the rounds and let the ants look for greener pastures. I checked back a few days later and they were all gone. Just to be on the safe side I waited a few months before splitting the wood and bringing it closer to the house.

Applesister said:

Im not good with letting the ants just crawl away when you crack the round open. I grab a can of ant spray.
Also stack the wood seperate from clean wood. But when you are splitting you can open their tunnels up by splitting small on those splits to better insure you arent carting them in with you.
Those are my precautions, they arent necessary for others, but I stack a fair amount of wood inside. The bug infested goes straight to the fire.

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IMHO, the ants are in many trees in general, so fussing about ones that you can see is not needed, as they will not be a problem after a few weeks at most. pesticides should only be considered if pests are threatening your house, which should not happen with carpenter ants for the reasons given above.

smee said:

Anything to worry about?
It looks like they were sleeping, they slowly wake up and crawl away.
They are mostly in the middle of the rounds, black locust and also maple.
Got both got dropped off at the same time so i'm guessing they came from the same place.
I sprayed the outside of my house with a spray...
Thanks,
Smee

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No. They'll leave, the birds love them.

Of course, if it gets to the point where they crawl up your pants leg, run away. My best advice having been in that situation. Pesticides are highly over rated

I bring ants home all the time, but I don't worry about it. around here if you have more than a couple of trees, you already have plenty of carpenter ants. The extra ants that may escape from the wood really don't make any difference, and probably don't live long.

My lazy theory: When I come across ants I just split the round and drop the splits on my cement driveway/splitting area. I then go and take a 15-20 minute break and let the birds feed for awhile. When I come back the ants have magically disappeared.

I think birds just wait for the sound of the splitter - kind of like the robins come to feed when I cut the grass.

Don't know about carpenter ants life cycle, but some of my dead cherry that was infested with them, stomped on as many as I could, and they essentially disappeared. Except for the ones that made a bee line for my open sugar bag in my kitchen. Never make that mistake again!

So there I was . . . sleeping away . . . figured it was too cold to go out so I was hunkered down with my buddies keeping warm when all of a sudden it was like a scene from a horror movie.

BRaaaaaaapppppp! Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaappppppppp!

A giant ant-killing blade of death . . . well actually in hindsight it was more like a bar with a sharp, metal chain moving at an incredible speed . . . came whipping through our home . . . cutting it right in two. In less than a second I lost half of my best friends, including Adam . . . ah, poor Adam . . . I remember him well . . . our eggs were right next to each other.

In any case, I thought the worse was over and we were all stumbling around . . . the bloody carnage . . . dead bodies were everywhere. Others of us had severed antenna, legs, etc. . . . oh, the humanity!

And then like a bad horror movie sequel . . . IT returned . . . this time however a giant metal cleaved through what was left of our home. Again, and again, the blows rained down. Some of us died instantly, cut in two. Others were squashed and although death came, it was a lingering death.

When it stopped there were even fewer of us left . . . and now our home was split up even more.

"OK, this has got to be it . . . this day cannot be any worse," I thought . . . until suddenly what was left of my home was suddenly lifted high into the air and violently tossed by a hideous two-legged giant wearing flannel. What was left of our home landed with a thud . . . I nearly fell out . . . others were not so fortunate . . . they plunged to their deaths or were pummeled by our home rolling on top of us.

--Aaron Ant

After all this, it was quiet . . . us survivors talked it over. "Should I stay or should I go now?" I thought to myself, but honestly, I already knew the answer. Our home had been ransacked and ravaged. Untold numbers of us were dead or dying. Overhead our most feared enemies, the birds, were circling, ready to pick us off one by one. Our beloved Queen was nowhere to be found. And the cold -- it was so cold. Even now I am not sure how many more of us will survive . . . for all I know . . . this diary entry may be my last entry. Goodbye cruel world.

Carpenter ants won't take up residence in your home unless there's a roof leak or leaking pipe somewhere. Wet wood is where an ant colony will be found.

Back when I was cutting trees it was common to encounter carpenter ant colonies in the base of red maples. Leave those rounds to set in the woods a few days and the ants were all gone. When you cut into a nest the ants are exposed to predators and they'll abandon it.

smee said:

Thanks for all the advice.
Now what are these?
Same wood with carpenter ants..

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More bird food.

Alternately, great fishing bait.

Cut worms. They also cannot infest dry wood. Relax.

Ants and termites live in dirt, not wood. They simply feed on wood but cannot live long term in it. Stack your wood off the ground, on a non-wood medium, like brick, or cynder block, like we do here, and they will go away.

Try to keep the wood away from the house too until use.

CentralVAWoodHeat said:

Ants and termites live in dirt, not wood. They simply feed on wood but cannot live long term in it. Stack your wood off the ground, on a non-wood medium, like brick, or cynder block, like we do here, and they will go away.

Try to keep the wood away from the house too until use.

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Carpenter ants live in wood and dirt but are carnivores. They make homes in wood but don't eat it to live.

smee said:

Thanks for all the advice.
Now what are these?
Same wood with carpenter ants..

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They are larvae from the Staghorn beetle. Supposed to be beneficial. I just came across some myself in a Red Oak tree that had some rot.

I also came across several pockets of carpenter ants that were packed into tunnels in same tree.
Im not familiar with the life cycle of carpenter ants or their feeding habits
But I do believe I have a carpenter ant infestation in my outside garage wall. I had a window sill that exploded last summer with hundreds of winged ants. And I sprayed it with an orchard pesticide. The canned stuff is pyrethrins, not really as dangerous. I do spray near the garage where I split alot of wood but out in the woods I couldnt possibly win any battle there.
I probably should call an exterminator for the garage, Im pretty positive its carpenter ants and the ground is very high and dry there. No "wet" wood.

See if I can find that pic
No..guess not picture too large.

Okay..one more time...