Patty O wrote:

Out in our shed we had lots of little bitty ants. More than I have EVER
seen before. In the past we've had good luck with Terro for these kind
of ants, but this time the Terro didn't even seem to put a dent in them.
An exterminator was over at the neighbor's so I got him over to look at
the situation. He showed me where the trail of ants was leading over to
an interior wall of the shed. This is an old shed, and it's divided in
2 parts by a wall that has siding on both sides. He showed me the mud
lines along the seams of the siding. Mud lines from termites inside
that wall. He told me ants are a natural predator of termites, and the
ants were feeding on the termites and then bringing the food outside to
their nest. I could see the ants carrying little bits on their way out.
When I made the guess to him that the ants would take care of the
termite problem, he then said the termites would start multiplying in
force and not be killed off completely. He gave me a bid of $250. to
take care of the termites and ants. I told him I'd think about it.
A couple of days later the ants were all gone. I had given up on the
Terro much earlier so I don't think it was the Terro that did it.
Do you think the exterminator was telling me fibs, and the ants did kill
off all of the termites and then quit coming in to the wall because
there was no food there for them anymore?

Is the shed on a slab? Got mud tubes from ground to the wood? We have
ants that leave a trail of dirt along a seam on a plastic fence.
Termite mud tubes are quite different, and would lead from ground to
wood. You can scrape away mud tubes, and if they aren't re-built, then
the colony is no longer active. Scrape away the stuff on your seams,
tap around and poke into the wood with an awl or screw driver. If
termites have eaten into the wood, you should be able to detect some
deteriorated wood signs - blistery looking paint, hollow sound to wood,
or probe digging right into the wood. $250 to treat a shed seems a bit
steep - would probably buy a lot of new wood )