Facts, identification & Control

Latin name: Lasius spp

Overview

Workers are yellow in color and reach the length 4 – 4.5 mm. When crushed, they emit odor like lemonade and it is commonly described as citronella.

Activity, food and habit

Lasius ants are named by their habit of nesting in high moisture areas. Some people call them yellow ants because the workers are yellowish in color Lasius ants also have common name “cintronella ants” because cintronella ants have mutual features of lasius genus. We need to distinguish the name of each species: Lasius ants is the mutual name for lasius genus and the latin name of cintronella ant is Lasius interjectus.

In nature, they usually nest under stones or timbers as well as rotten wood on the ground. Lasius ants eat honeydew from aphids and scale insects that feed on plant roots. Lasius ants take care of these aphids to collect honeydew from them. Some ant colonies nest under slab. Their nests are under flag and the Lasius usually makes gibbons when they dig the soil. If these gibbon appear in your houses, they can make homeowner worry. Many people confuse that these are caused by termite.

When Lasius invade in your home, they usually nest in wet wood. They find damaged woods in U-shaped tubes. Sometimes they nest in the wall which have leaking waterpipes. There are some cases that these ant nest in moist ground underground.

If you see any ants in wet or damaged woods, treating and replacing woods are very important. In some moist areas, using treated woods is the most appropriate choice.

Reproduction

Each nest has a queen. The queen will reproduce other members in the colony. Mating season is in summer when flying ants (males and females) emerge from the nest and mate. The flying females will establish a new one after mating.

Sign of Lasius

Yellow worker and flying ants are the clearest sign of lasius.

Do the Lasius fly?

Those which can fly are males and females participating in mating season.

Flying ants

If you see any flying ants in your house, clean them by vacuum. Sometimes, it is very difficult to distinguish betwwen flying ants and flying termites. Let’s contact to Nano Vina to have appropriate advises.