The efficiency of scout ants

Hello, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. I have been moving my small liquid ant bait traps around downstairs, from the kitchen to the back porch, and now the pantry. Now the ants seem to want sugar, and I thought I found what they were after. But when they didn’t leave, I looked harder and found another mostly sealed bag of sweets. I got rid of that, but still left the bait station in place. They obviously have scouts who come from the outside and search the entire house – in this case, found something accessible, took that news back to the colony, and the workers all filed into the third shelf in the pantry behind several cans of tomatoes. They’re better at finding things in the pantry than I am. I recently couldn’t find the arborio rice until I’d already bought some more and put it up.