Carpenter ants do not eat wood to survive like termites. Carpenter ants only chew through wood meaning they never digest it. The wood they chew is moist and soft making it easy for them to chew tunnels and galleries. The wood is often water-damaged or rotting. The narrow tunnels they make are used to store their eggs, larvae, and food. The queen ant and 90% of the worker ants also spend their entire lives inside the wood. Only around 10% of the ants in the colony leave the nest to forage for food. Structural damage caused by carpenter ants is less severe than termite damage. The water seeping into the wood that is attracting the ants will often cause significant structural damage faster than the ants.