Flying Ants or Termites?

Flying Ants vs Termites

A cloud of winged insects appears on a warm spring day. They gather at a window, along a sill or around a porch light, and by evening there are discarded wings on the floor. Homeowners find them and ask the same question: are these flying ants or termites? It is the right question, because the two look alike from a few feet away and call for very different responses.

Both are reproductive swarmers. Ant colonies and termite colonies each send out winged males and females to mate and start new colonies, and both tend to do it after rain when the ground is warm. Here in southern Virginia and northern North Carolina, subterranean termites swarm in spring, often on the first warm days after a rain. Several ant species, including carpenter ants, swarm in the same window. That overlap is why the confusion is so common.

Look at three features. The waist first. An ant has a pinched waist, with a narrow joint between the middle of the body and the back end. A termite's body is roughly the same width from front to back, with no pinch. Next, the antennae. Ant antennae have a bend in them, like an elbow. Termite antennae are straight, or gently curved, and look like a string of tiny beads. Last, the wings. A winged ant has two pairs of wings of unequal length, with the front pair noticeably longer than the back pair. A termite swarmer has two pairs of equal length, both longer than the body, and they shed easily, which is why you find piles of loose wings and no insects. Color helps a little. Termite swarmers are often dark, and their wings are a milky, translucent gray. Ants vary more.

If you found them, collect a few. A piece of clear tape pressed over several insects, or a handful in a small jar or a zip bag, is plenty. Note where they came out. Swarmers emerging from inside the house, from a baseboard, a window frame or a crack in the slab, are a stronger sign of an established termite colony than swarmers seen outside on a stump or in the yard. Do not spray them. Swarmers do not damage anything themselves, and spraying removes the evidence.

Then have a technician look. An inspection is free and carries no obligation, and it settles the question. If the insects are termites, we can talk about liquid soil treatment or termite bait stations. If they are ants, we identify the species and treat the colony. Either way, you get an answer rather than a guess.