Soon many more inhabitants of hidden ant nests will emerge to follow the trails etched by these scouts, forming those astonishingly organized supply lines they're famous for.

    "It's really interesting how they operate. The field of entomology is quite fascinating," said Alan Luke, who's not exactly an entomologist, but has spent a good deal of the last few years learning about bugs.

    Luke owns two Vancouver-based pest-control companies, Bugaboo Pest Control, LLC  and a subsidiary, Ant Control Northwest.

    His Web site, www.getbugs.com, is a wealth of information everything you may or may not want to know about pests and pest control.

    It even contains a wealth of pro-bug propaganda under the heading "Why We Need Insects" reminding us that, for example, nearly one-third of the food we eat is in some way dependent on bee pollination, and that we'd be drowning in dead plants and animals, not to mention their waste, if it wasn't for insects recycling organic matter.

    So why not just stand back and admire those little creatures as they freshen up our planet?

    Ant season

    Well, maybe you never meant to welcome a recycling plant into your kitchen.

    Luke knows he's up for an early ant season when it's only March and he's already fielding calls from freaked-out people ducking for cover as winged ants or termites, they think take to the skies, both indoors and out.

    What they're spotting is an early stage of carpenter ant life. (Termites tend to strike in autumn and have long, straight antennae and matching sets of wings; carpenter ants have "elbowed" antennae and larger front than hind wings. In the illustration above, the bug on the right is an ant; second from left is a termite.)

    They're called carpenter ants because they work with wood. They don't eat it, but they can cause structural damage by carving out caves and castles for their nests. They start with soft, rotting wood but then bore into healthy, harder wood. Parent colonies are usually found outdoors in live or dead trees, shrubs or other woody spaces, but satellite colonies are often established indoors for warmth and protection.

    A recent inspection of beams and boards in Cecilia Thomas' basement on East 18th Street turned up a scattering of sawdust on the floor and in some of the cobwebs above evidence of ants busy at building.

    "I did a localized treatment here last year," Luke said, "but it looks like some of the colonies are hanging on."

    Luke got ready to inject a dust-based pesticide into the open seams between the walls and ceiling, and he said he'd follow that up with a full-room fogging of a natural pyrethrin an extract of the chrysanthemum. Synthetic pyrethrins have been engineered to be longer-lasting and control other pests as well.

    He called it a thermal fog because the vapor is heated in order to send it rising upward into the ceiling. Thomas removed a couple of clothes racks and stayed out of the room for a few hours.

    Another popular remedy for ants is bait, Luke said, especially because people have grown so concerned about environmental and health effects of pesticides. Rather than dousing the landscape with poison, baits are made with the tiniest amount of a toxic substance boric acid is a popular and effective choice that ants take back to their colonies to share.

    Still-greener strategies are available. Take, for example, a substance named diatomaceous earth, made from the finely milled fossils of freshwater and marine life. It's completely harmless to people and animals (in fact it's often used in feed and on coats to defeat parasites) but to insects it's like glass shards and razor blades.

    Luke has spread diatomaceous earth powder outside, as a perimeter treatment, with mixed results, he said.

    "Natural products work but they take longer and you have to do a real thorough, careful job with them," he said.

    Regulation

    The Environmental Protection Agency registers and tests pesticides, and no pesticide can legally be used until the government has certified it. According to its Web site, the EPA tests pesticides to make sure they can be "used with a reasonable certainty of no harm to human health and without posing unreasonable risks to the environment."

    But opinions vary on the safety even of government-regulated pesticides.

    For example, the chrysanthemum-based pyrethrin that Luke used sounds gentle, but it's considered "mildly hazardous" by the World Health Organization and "likely" to be carcinogenic in humans by the EPA. A paper posted online by the Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides (www.pesticide.org) details incidents of nerve damage, allergic reactions and one poisoning death.

    Problems like these are most likely to come up, of course, when you're looking not to eliminate specific pests but nuke the entire neighborhood. The EPA says registered pesticides are safe when used according to instructions.

    In general, the days of spraying early, often and too much have given way to something called Integrated Pest Management a 10-dollar term that simply means using a combination of common-sense approaches for effectiveness with the least environmental impact possible. For example:

    Indoors

    * Dry up. Like you, pests need water to live. Fix your leaky plumbing and eliminate places where water gathers around your home. Don't leave water standing in houseplant trays.

    * Clean up. Store food in sealed glass or plastic containers. Don't leave pet food out in bowls for long. Put food scraps in tightly covered cans. Don't store newspapers, paper bags or boxes for very long little bugs love hiding in them.

    * Block it up. Install screens on your windows, doors, floor drains and heat exchanges any obvious passageways for creatures to come in. Seal cracks around cabinets and baseboards.

    Outdoors

    * Keep away. A standard recommendation is that vegetation everything from mulch piles to shrubbery be kept at least 18 inches from the home. The National Pest Management Association recommends moving piles of wood a favorite hangout of carpenter ants and termites at least 20 feet away.

    * Keep it clean. Garbage attracts mice and rats, so keep your trash sealed and have it removed regularly. Standing water breeds mosquitoes and other pests, so sweep away puddles and drain ponds.

    * Keep it healthy. A healthy lawn and landscape will resist many pests. Water your lawn deeply but not too often and make sure the soil has good drainage.

    * Keep it appropriate. A healthy lawn needs insects. Earthworms, spiders, millipedes and all sorts of microorganisms feast on the layer of thatch (dead grass) and release its nutrients into the lawn. Declaring total war on insects means making your lawn a desert.

    Stay calm

    Dealing with unwelcome creatures "is a very emotional thing with some people," said Luke. "They want results right away and sometimes they don't really want to know what they're dealing with."

    It's not surprising when you combine the violated feeling that comes with a home-invasion with the creepy-crawly quality of the creatures involved. Some people really don't like bugs.

    But don't lose your head if you've decided to hire a professional. Check references and plans of action; don't let a contractor push you into something that feels wrong.

    Luke said he got a call from an elderly woman who called a big, reputable pest control company because she was spooked by a little bit of sawdust; the company wanted $5,000 to turn her house more or less upside down removing insulation and ductwork and became obnoxious about insisting upon it.

    After she summoned the nerve to say no, Luke said, he took a look at the situation and told the lady she didn't have a problem at least, nothing that required immediate action.

    "It's at least worth it to wait a while," he said. "Structural damage takes place slowly."

    Furthermore, he'd rather not have to guess about the type and whereabouts of the pests involved.

    "We're more successful when they're more active," said Luke.

    Did you know?

    * Box elder bugs may be a nuisance as they wheedle their way past your window screens, but they're harmless. Half-inch ovals with red markings on their wings, they like to winter and lay eggs in building cracks and crevices. And they like to sun themselves on warm spring days. But box elder bugs don't eat or undermine wood or bite people.

    Dealing with the big boys

    Unlike insects, some critters make their presence overwhelmingly obvious mostly by scrambling around in your home's attic or crawl space, chewing up wood and maybe even equipment like vents and telephone wires. According to the National Pest Management Association, it's estimated that 21 million American homes are invaded by rodents each winter.

    If you've been suffering with birds or animals in your walls or attic over the winter, you may realize they've gone quiet lately because the weather's been so balmy.

    "They tend to come inside while it's cold out just like we do," said Bruce Head, co-owner of AAA Pioneer Wildlife Control.

    So now's the time, while your uninvited guests have returned to the wilderness, to take simple steps to keep them there:

    * Close up the holes, cracks and crawl spaces. Install chimney caps and screens on air vents. (Make sure pests are really gone before you do this.) This is the best approach with birds.

    * Trim branches away from your roof. Squirrels tends to use them as springboards.

    * End the midnight snacks. Head said he gets complaints from people who leave bowl after bowl of dog food on the back deck and then complain about the raccoons that always seem to be wandering by.

    It's possible to trap some rodents yourself with a commercial trap, but when it comes to the bigger creatures coyotes, raccoons, beavers Head's advice is, don't try.