If you’re a long-time reader of this column, thank you. You’re the reason I’ve been writing it every week for 28 years. Even if you’ve been reading for only a short time, you may have noticed that—though I never “rerun” a column—I sometimes write (in what I hope is a new and interesting way) about the same topic.
Ants, for instance.
I’ve been fascinated by them ever since I was gifted an ant farm when I was a kid. In a few inches of sand pressed between two sheets of plastic, I could watch ants dig tunnels and move food and do all kinds of interesting stuff. (And, yeah, you can still buy ant farms. I checked.)
I grew up in a clean and tidy, though certainly not sterile, home. Several times every year, we were invaded by ants. “They come inside searching for water when it’s dry,” my mother would say. Or “They come inside when it’s wet to dry off.” That’s how I learned not to be freaked out by ants, whether they were in the sugar bowl or on the window sill or marching inside under the patio door.
Sooner or later, the ants would leave. And sooner or later, they would return.
But after more than seven decades of living with these tiny invaders, how could I not have known that most species of ants, when preparing to reproduce, grow wings and become what entomologists call a “swarm”?
A swarm of winged ants overran my new-to-me home a couple of weeks ago. As I write this column, they’re still here. I first discovered about a dozen of them behind the blinds on the glass doors that lead to the back yard. What in the world, I wondered. Surely not termites. I’d had a termite inspection before buying the house. Whatever they were, the solution seemed simple. I licked my index finger and squashed them, one by one. Easy-peasy.
Then I went to the kitchen. The window above the sink was a scene from a horror movie. Dozens, or perhaps hundreds, of the creatures covered the glass. I took a cell phone picture. Google identified them as winged ants. I learned that when the weather turns warm, “princess” ants and “drone” ants emerge from their nests to mate. They seek out sunny spots where they can meet a potential boyfriend or girlfriend who’s not from the same nest—apparently ants are programmed to avoid incest—and then they get together. The males die almost immediately after coupling. Females look for a place to start a colony of their own. The great cycle of like continues.
In just a few days, the internet assured me, my house would be ant-free, at least for a while.
Yeah, but. Winged ants are floating in my iced tea glass. They’re in my coffee mug. My shoes. They swarm inside the lampshade when I read in the evenings. I even found one in the bathroom on my toothbrush. Ewwwww.
Clearly, I need a weapon more powerful than my finger. But not Raid. I don’t want poison in my house or slime on my windows. The number one suggestion from “experts” is to simply ignore the ants until they leave. Barring that, I should sprinkle cinnamon all over the place. Or set out gel traps so the ants will carry poison back to their nests without making my human nest dangerous to live in. Nope. The few ants who crawl inside the Terro traps never leave. They drown. And I won’t use glue sheets, for ants or any other pests, because I consider them inhumane.
So I’m left with manually crushing every ant I encountered, either with my fingers or with strips of heavy-duty packing tape, which causes instant death. Thus far, the ants I haven’t killed continue to disappear and get my hopes up. Then they reappear, plunging me into despair.
Woe is me.
(May 23, 2026)