Can you smell ants?

[Peppermaynt]

I could swear I can smell ants. They've got a strong, sickenly sweet smell. A bit like that Clark's original maple syrup mix.
My husband thinks it's nonsense.

Is it? Am I just imagining stuff?

Are you sure you don't have something sweet and sickly which is attracting them?
I have a really keen sense of smell...and I mean really keen, but hand on heart I have never smelt an ant...now there's a sentence I never thought I'd right😂

Write, not right...bloomin heck

Thank you for your reply!

Maybe, but I doubt it! it's usually ants in the garden in the summer and no. Sometimes we'd have nests and the smell would be quite pronounced. Maybe it's the stack of sugar they hide down there ? haha

I think there is something in this and I'm sure I read about it a few years ago. I was pregnant at the time and the smell of the forest we walked through used to turn me into a gagging mess, the smell was quite specific but I think it varies from person to person what it actually smells like.
Essentially something in the ants (wood ants?) secretion that they use to breakdown wood, leaves is the thing that smells.
Could be complete bollocks obviously!

I think I can smell them when there is a high concentration of them inside a doorway or something. I only recently discovered this when I had a nest somewhere I hadn't been using, the smell was disgusting and a really sweet, slightly prawny smell. I thought it must be from some residue or something they nest with.

not ants but I can smell snails, always have been able to so I definitely believe you can do the same with ants.
I don't have a particularly good sense of smell usually.

Yes - I can smell them! It is a really distinct smell, and every time I smell it, I look around and sure enough, ants!

Never noticed this but I can smell ladybirds!

Some species of ants have a particularly noticeable smell. But usually only when you squash them.

Where I grew up in the tropics, there was a particular type of tiny light-brown ants which could find even the minutest speck of sweet stuff within minutes; almost instantly a trail would form, and nobody wanted to be the one to clear them off because we all hated the sickly stink.

Google suggests that they may have been Tapinoma sp. (commonly known as "odorous house ants") which have a sickly sweet smell when squashed, sometimes described as a cross between rotten coconut and blue cheese (not sure what that would actually smell like 🤷🏻‍♀️).

But, I don't know if any of these species live in the UK.

Now that you mention it, yes

Ants produce formic acid which I believe has a distinctive smell. Not sure what the smell is though.

Did no one enjoy the thrill of sticking their hands in ant mounds when they were kids? Vinegar, they smell of vinegar