Florida Carpenter Ants, also known as Bull Ants or Bulldog Ants, are big critters …¼ to ½ inch long. Compared to the other out-of-town carpenter ants, which are usually all reddish-brown or black in color, this Florida model has a reddish-yellow head and thorax with a black abdomen. This guy has glass. 

Although these giant ants prefer to nest in logs, stumps or dead trees where the wood contacts the soil and moisture is plentiful, they will also infest structural wood of buildings. They especially prefer construction wood that has been damaged by termites or by decay, but once established may very well invade sound wood. 

Carpenter ants do not eat wood, but they remove it and eject it as sawdust in the process of constructing galleries for nests. These galleries are kept very smooth and clean … an almost sandpaper appearance. Other wood-infesting insects do not keep their galleries this clean. Carpenter ants feed on honeydew from sap sucking insects, on dead and live insects and on food wastes in and around houses. A typical nest will contain several thousand individuals and can exist for several years if not treated. Deadwood areas of living trees are occasionally infested.