carpenter ants

Last Saturday while I was pulling weeds near an old wood section of fence I felt a sharp pain on my little finger. thinking it was a fire ant,which I get a lot of stings from, I applied liquid fabric softener which usually takes the sting away in a few minutes. Mfinfers and hand started to swell so I had my daughter drive me to mr dr.s office a block away. She lookes at it and called the ambulance right away saying she did not have the equiptment to treat me if I stopped breathing.The medics sped me away to the hospital.I do not remember too much after that but hours later the doctor said it was from a carpenter ant. theydo not sting but can give a powerful bite when mad and emit a toxic poison.It has taken a full week fow me to recover and I wanted to share this with all the gardeneres out there. The dr. said one should take benadryl if bitten.then get to a hospital.

Holy cow! I'm glad you're alright. We used to live in a house that had rivers, like a cartoon river of ants, tromping down the fenceline across the patio and into a pool house to proceed to munch away/gather nesting material/whatever they do to wood. Never got bit by one though.

In the interest of protecting your house/buildings you should consider a carpenter ant control program. We had spray done every 6 months I think and that kept them to a minimum and out of the house.

Glad you came out of the bite in one piece.

EVELYNCOLE,
Well, I cannot speak for everyone, but I AM VERY GLAD you are ok, and on the mend!! :)

Yikes! So glad to hear that you are ok. I'll keep this in mind since I've got ants of every kind. I don't usually worry about any of them except the fire ants, until now. Thanks for sharing!

I am glad that you are okay evelyncole, but I am surprised that a doctor would be able to tell that a carpenter ant was the culprit. I would be very suspect myself. It is true that carpenter ants emit a "toxin" - it is formic acid, though I'm not sure how toxic it is - but I would be very surprised that a carpenter ant would be able to poison you without you noticing it. Basically the carpenter ant has to grab on to you, bite you hard enough to draw blood, then curl up her abdomen and spray the formic acid into the cut. Generally this would take a few seconds or at least you would see the ant doing it - unlike if something stung you, which could be quick. The problem is that if you are not sure that formic acid is what you are allergic too - in other words if you didn't actually see the carpenter ant - you might be allergic to something else and may not know what to watch out for to make sure that it doesn't bite or sting you again.

One suspect I would consider is a genus of ant called Pseudomyrmex. There are a few species that live in your area, and species in the Pseudomyrmex gracilus complex (which means there are a few related species too close to separate easily) are especially common. We had a case here in Georgia where a man was extremely allergic to them. His wife brought the ant to me to identify, and I confirmed that it was a Pseudomyrmex. In case he was stung, he had a special allergy kit so as to make sure he didn't stop breathing if he got stung again.

I'd suggest using gloves to do garden work until you find out and/or have something in case of an allergic reaction.

Here in Georgia (and also in Florida), the brown recluse spider is one of the doctors' favorite culprits. Even though the brown recluse has only been confirmed for 11 of our 159 counties, doctors are quick to diagnose a bite or skin problem as a brown recluse bite, even when it is very unlikely that was the actual case.


I've not heard of using fabric softener on bites, but I have heard that amonia works very well. It is what the life guards at the beach we used to go to in Naples, Florida used to put on jellyfish stings to take the pain away.

Very glad you're okay, ecole. Scary!

I'm also surprised the doctor IDed the insect w/o seeing it. Not because I think the carpenter ant got a bad rap (hate them!) but because doctors are supposed to hold off on IDing the culprit till they're sure. In the name of science and all. Oh well!

In honor of your adventure, I shall don my gloves today to garden.

Good idea, Zeppy. I hardly ever garden without them unless I'm just picking my veggies. But anything where I'm disturbing dirt or grabbing plants, I've got gloves on. We have lots of critters here that although they are often helpful predators, they can still bite or sting you if you accidentally squash them.