Are winged or flying Carpenter ants a sign of a dying colony??
Well, having fought a long battle against carpenter ants myself – hate to be the bearer of bad news, but no your battle is not over. The flying carpenter ants are reproductives. Small ones are males and large ones are future queens. Ants have cycles of normal reproductive periods where they mate in large numbers, and then periods where they work. What happened is you killed off a large enough percentage of the ants that the queen panicked and started reproducing insanely and started a new matting season. The winged ones are looking for new places to nest, because the colony was threatened. This is a really good resource on carpenter ants: http://www.unexco.com/carpants.html Basically the big thing you need to know is that if you are pretty sure they are living inside your home (which it sounds like they are from your description) – then you likely have a water problem that needs treated. Any pesticide treatment will prett
