It seems every sunny patch of ground, every al fresco meal, every unswept corner harbours a bustling assemblage of ants in the year 2024. Their everywhere-ness is undeniable, their numbers uncountable. We brush them away, step around their trails and vacuum up their wanderers—yet they persist.
But why do these insects appear to be achieving global dominance? Here, we look at why there are so many ants in 2024 and what it all means.
Are there more ants in 2024?
Research shows there are 2.5 million ants for every one human on the planet, and the numbers keep growing. In total, there are around 20 quadrillion ants roaming the planet in 2024. The increase in numbers is likely to do with several factors, including environmental conditions, food availability and reproduction cycles.
Environmental conditions
The upheavals of climate change have also favoured the global proliferation of ants. Warming temperatures open new territories to any heat-embracing species, while extreme weather creates disturbances and disruptions that allow opportunistic ants to gain footholds.
Drought-stricken landscapes, houses shaken by storms—they all offer opportunities for these supremely adaptable insects to conquer and colonise. Where we struggle, ants capitalise on the disorder and encroaching chaos.
Food availability
Our growing human numbers and spread into new areas have accidentally provided lots of food for ants. The crumbs we spill, improperly stored food and sweet plant fluids from pests on houseplants all give ants plenty to eat.
We casually throw out edible waste, creating a buffet welcomed by constantly hungry ant workers. What looks like pointless litter to us is seen by ants, through their chemical communications, as a resource worth exploiting. Our wastefulness nourishes them.
Reproduction cycles
Ants’ quick reproduction gives them an edge in multiplying their populations. Queen ants can live for decades, constantly laying eggs to expand the colony. When mature, young queens go on mating flights and start new nests, escalating the ants’ spread. A single colony can blossom into multiple offspring colonies in just one season.
Urban sprawl
Ants also reproduce more successfully in urbanised areas lacking predators and competitors. With plenty of food and limited threats, ant populations can grow exponentially year after year. Their reproduction cycles create an avalanche of new colonies overwhelming environments. No wonder they seem to be everywhere in 2024.
How does colony growth work?
At the core of the ants’ endless spread is their unusual way of growing colonies. An ant colony does not simply expand outward evenly from its original nest. Instead, it multiplies by flight.
The process starts when unfertilised queen ants, and drone ants, leave their home nest and fly into the skies. They search for mating partners from other colonies and they mate in the air. This is called a nuptial flight. The to-be queen ants may mate with several drones during the nuptial flight.
Once fertilised, the male ant dies having served his purpose. The fertilised queens will find somewhere to start a colony.
Over time, through this process, a single colony can spread into thousands of new colonies, with each new growing in population and reaching up to 100,000 ants.
Why are there more ants in my house?
Our climate-controlled homes offer ideal environments for ants to flourish. With steady temperatures, condensation providing drink and abundant crumb-trails and spills to metabolise, our homes and places of work are ant utopias. The very architecture providing our comfort allows ants to bypass seasonal constraints on colony development.
Moreover, our increasing reliance on sealed construction techniques has created a network of microscopic highways perfect for ingenious ant explorers to infiltrate. They stream unseen through hairline crevices in foundations, window frames and walls until their sophisticated foraging trails connect them to our kitchens, bathrooms and larders. We may disbelieve how quickly their migratory multitudes conquer new human-made territories.
Spotting a few pioneer ants today likely signals a looming inundation. For where ants encounter calories and conditions favourable to their exponential reproducibility, their population explosions become inevitable invasions of the homeplaces we thought we’d permanently claimed from nature’s remit.
What is flying ant day?
Each summer brings a phenomenon familiar to anyone who has witnessed it—Flying Ant Day. Flying ant day is a misnomer. In fact flying ants will emerge on any calm warm day. Typically there are a few days each year, normally in July, where flying ants come out in very large numbers. The skies squirm with multitudes of winged ants, their fragile bodies taking briefly to the air in an ancient reproductive ritual. They pour from underground nests in spectacular numbers, forming dense mating clouds that wave through neighbourhoods, parks and city streets.
We regard this natural spectacle with a mixture of wonder and annoyance, for while the ants’ mating flights are an essential regenerative act, they also leave surfaces coated in casually discarded wings and aborted ant-trysts. Pavements, cars and even freshly laundered sheets become unintended insect bridal chambers on these evenings of fecund frenzy. The next morning, the ants walking once more, their nuptial flights a memory tinged with the sadness of nature’s impersonal mechanics.
Yet this very renewal lays the foundations for the ants’ global expansion. The successful males fertilise queens who will soon establish new colonies, sending forth offspring in uncountable numbers to populate the earth. Flying Ant Day is both the key to the ants’ spread, as well as an unsettling annual reminder of just how successful they have become.
How can I get rid of ants and flying ants in my property?
When ants colonise our living spaces, mild deterrents rarely stem their relentless advance for long. To effectively purge these industrious insects from your property requires a multi-pronged offensive targeting their survival resources.
Seal entry points
The first step is cutting off ants’ access by sealing any cracks or crevices where they may be gaining entry. Inspect foundations, window and door frames, and utility lines and vents, caulking any potential ant highways with a high-quality sealant. You’ll also just want to keep windows and doors closed while flying ants are swarming outside to prevent them coming in.
Remember, male flying ants will die soon after their flight. But the female queens will search for somewhere to create a colony. This is why it’s important to prevent the queen from setting up shop in your home.
It’s common for queens to set up colonies inside walls as this will provide her worker ants easy access to your food supply as well as protection for the colony.
If winged ants are inside your home, then the recommendation is to vacuum them up straight away before they disappear into a crevice.
What if you already have a colony living in your walls?
Eliminate food sources
Next, destroy ants’ motivation to march around your home by depriving them of food. Clean all surfaces, vacuum, secure edibles in airtight containers and wipe up spills as soon as they happen. Make your property a famine-zone for ants.
Use bait insecticides
Sprays and powders alone can’t defeat a full-blown colony. The best solution is toxic baits that foraging ants unwittingly carry back to contaminate their entire nest, including egg-laying queens. Look for products containing slow-acting toxins like borax, and persistently reapply bait until ant trails cease.
Hire professionals
For severe infestations, calling an exterminator may be necessary. Experts can use powerful insecticides and years of experience dealing with ants to locate and destroy well-entrenched ant colonies.
Summing up: more ants in 2024
The everywhereness of ants in 2024 is a consequence of their supreme adaptability combined with ideal conditions created by human activities and a disrupted climate. While their prevalence can be a nuisance, it also serves as a poignant reminder of nature’s resilience and our own limitations in fully controlling our environment.
Merlin’s ant control services are available nationwide across the UK and Ireland. Contact us for a free, no-obligation quote to protect your property.
