Urgent help identifying ants?

I’ve never seen jumping ants. Are you sure they’re not fleas? Do you have any animals? You might have to get an exterminator, or seal off the room and use an aerosol bug-bomb.

These definitely aren’t fleas. They have wings and they are really, really small. Did you look at the pics I posted? I put one next to a penny so people could see the size. But you can clearly see wings on all of them. I’m so confused.

@DrasticDreamer I can’t see any wings in your photos. My guess is that they are just regular ants that are fully developed and are just trying to find somewhere for their next colonies. I have some of these guys at home too, they just love my lighting. If that’s the case you can just deal with them the regular way.

They all have wings. On the picture that’s really blown up, that’s what the iridescence is.

I’m not sure, and I am no pest expert.
It’s strange that these ants are only in one location—on her bed and dresser. Perhaps she brought something home that had them on it. At my parent’s place, every spring we’d get ants roaming around our house. They were carpenter ants, bigger than these ones. They were easy to get rid of, though. We mixed Borax, sugar, and water. We put this mixture on plastic lids, then placed the lids on the floor in the corners of the house. They’re attracted to the sweetness of the sugar, and are poisoned by the Borax. You could at least try this. It’s a good first step because it’s easy and inexpensive.

@DrasticDreamer ok. But my answer is still the same: they may be just harmless but annoying regular ants. These guys at my home have wings too.

Squished, but you can see the wings in this picture. And if you click this picture once you go to the link, you can see the body more clearly.

@Mimishu1995 I definitely think you could be right, I’m just really paranoid. I wanted to make sure that they weren’t something like carpenter ants or termites.

Winged ants?

How to get rid of flying ants: 6 tips after Britain’s summer insect invasion

Flying Ants? Here’s What To Look For

I would say you do need a professional and not just an exterminator…an entomologist from a local university to come out and identify this critter.

I had 3 exterminators say the house I wanted to buy was infested with powder post beetles which are more destructive than termites and would require tearing out all the woods beams etc. Our Realtor called in the local college entomologist and she made a bee-line for the lazy susan and found a box of froot loops that had fallen behind the carousel and was infested with Drug store beetles which are nearly indistinguishable from the powder post and was easily remedied and was the difference of a $30,000 powder post extermination or a 2 minute toss out the cereal and her $50.00 trip charge.

They do look like some sort f flying ant. I wouldn’t panic, it’s spring, things are hatching everywhere. I stepped out of my car yesterday into the tall grass by the gate to get a UPS package and was engulfed with leaf hoppers when I stepped into the grass. lol
Try to find the source they are coming from as @Cruiser said.

If I’m not mistaken, all male ants have wings at some stage of their lives. So that on its own is not a very good clue for identification. I doubt anyone can give you a reliable ID without knowing where you are, either; a photo without a location is kind of meaningless. There are websites where you can post your pictures (like What’s That Bug), and someone will come to your rescue, but it may take some time. But it may not matter what species they are specifically.

I have often had ants invade my kitchen, and so have done quite a bit of reading in the past about getting rid of them. All ant poisons are based on a solution of borax in water with sugar, as @dxs suggests – though some use peanut butter instead of sugar and water; it depends on whether they’re likely to want solid or liquid food. Usually, the concentration of borax is about 5%, sometimes up to 8%. If you don’t want to mix it yourself (I never do), just buy bottle of it. If you hire an exterminator, they’ll probably do what you’ve already done: vacuum up the critters you can see, and then lay out a borax solution. They will likely look for a source – I imagine you can do that, too. Are they on the move? Coming from or going to anything in particular? Take a look and see if you can figure it out.

The borax poisons are meant not to kill the ants where they eat it. If they are dying where you lay it out, it’s too strong. They should be able to carry droplets of it back to the nest where it will kill the queen and destroy the colony.

But I’ll also add that ant outbreaks are often fleeting things. They will likely disappear on their own (or at least become invisible to you) shortly anyway. Personally, I prefer to fight them off, though. I’m kind of territorial that way.

Thanks, guys! I was having trouble identifying whether they were just flying ants or termites since their antennae looked straight to me, and their bodies didn’t seem to pinch at the waist enough.

@dappled_leaves Thank you for that website link, I’ll definitely give it a shot. If it helps you, or anyone here, I’m in Portland, Oregon and the weather has been unseasonably hot.

@DrasticDreamer They look like ants to me. I didn’t even know termites existed that far north!

@dappled_leaves Yep, we definitely get termites here, too. Are you in California?

It’s swarming season for a lot of insects. All of a sudden you can have an infestation coming out of the woodwork so to speak.

They do look like winged ants not termites. Winged ants are a real thing. It isn’t your eyes playing trucks. Usually, bait poison is recommended for ants. You lay down the poison and they bring it back to the nest. I used to do that and them spray a little also after giving them a week to eat the stuff. I didn’t have winged ants, but in FL we have plenty of ants. I’m no expert, that’s just my experience and guess.

Good news, not termites.

@DrasticDreamer No, I’m in Quebec. I never hear about termites from anyone except Americans (though I think there are a couple of species in western Canada).

It’s one of the things we’re going to hate about climate change – we have almost no insects that are poisonous or damaging. They tend to live where it’s warmer. Eventually, they’ll make their way up here.

@ARE_you_kidding_me That’s awesome to hear. I was having trouble identifying stuff when I was looking online.

@dappled_leaves Ah, okay. Yes… Oregon used to be similar. Well, we had some things that were poisonous and damaging, but the warmer out climate gets, the more things come here. We never used to have Africanized honeybees, but they’re steadily making their way North. Each year is getting warmer and warmer, much earlier than is typical for Portland. It’s kind of scary.

The Africanized bees are very upsetting to me. I’m mostly angry at the guy who brought them to the Americas in the first place (on purpose) and now we have them in FL when we didn’t the last time I lived here. I think the US always had the climate for them, I see more honey bees, earth bees, yellow jackets, in WI than FL for as long as I can remember, but it’s just that they are making their way north over time. Migrating.

Are they carpenter ants? I looked on google and thought they might be

@Stinley I don’t think so. They’re all so tiny right now that it’s really hard to tell for sure, though. One reason I got really paranoid is because their antennae look straight to me – not curved like ants – which is what prompted me to ask here.

Honestly, my first reaction when I saw your picture, @DrasticDreamer, was that they are wasps, or bees. They look similar to sweat bees to me, and nearly identical to Eulophids, although I see nothing about those swarming.
Here’s another tiny wasp that resembles your photo closely.
Another describes dozens of chalcidoid wasps

I think they are just winged ants. Not carpenter ants.

@ibstubro I think you might have solved it! That Chalcid Wasp description shows that the size is very similar and it even says they jump like fleas! My niece has been getting bitten/stung, too! I’m going to share this with my sister, because I really think you might be right. Thank you for your sleuthing! :)

Yay! Now, you just have to get rid of them.

Nice one, @ibstubro!

Wasp was my first instinct, @DrasticDreamer. If I’d spent more time looking at the Google images for “tiny wasp” the first time, I would have found it sooner.

Perhaps there’s an attractant that will allow her to remove the bees without killing them? Parasitic wasps are very beneficial. One I looked at in the course of researching this was death on wood worms – as in your niece’s dresser? Wood worms are not that uncommon and can be brought into the average house on grape vines, commonly used for decoration.

I know your priority is getting rid of the bugs, but finding the root and being gentle to the wasps is desirable, too. :-)

@ibstubro Wow, hm, you really might be onto stuff here. lol! Our neighbor has a big grape bush growing on his fence, but a large part of it also comes into our yard. We love it, because it makes that part of the yard beautiful, but I really hope that doesn’t mean wood worms.

And yes, I would much rather not harm them, so I’ll try to think of something that can get them out without hurting them. I just carry spiders out in my hands, but these guys are so small that won’t be possible. Thank you again! All of this was really helpful information. I love Fluther for these precise reasons! :)

That’s a lot of what I used to love about Fluther, too, @DrasticDreamer.
I love a mystery, I like learning through researching, and I genuinely get a kick out of helping people.

Truth told, I liked it better when the Q&A outweighed the social.