How long can I leave there are carpenter ants in my tree trunk before it becomes dangerous?
Months to years, not days. Decay advances on the order of inches per year in most species, so a trunk that is stable this spring is generally stable next spring. What changes while you wait is your margin — each season the cavity widens slightly and every load above it, a full leaf canopy or an ice storm or a limb that simply grew heavier, acts on less wood. Reassess yearly, and again immediately after any storm that takes a major limb, because losing a limb redistributes load onto the decayed section.
Whether it can still be saved
Usually, and often for many more years. Ants alone are not grounds for removal, and spraying the trunk changes nothing structural — it kills foragers, not decay. The decision rests on how much sound wood surrounds the hollow. A common practitioner rule of thumb treats a stem retaining roughly a third of its radius as sound shell wall as reasonably stable, but that is a starting point for assessment, not a verdict (UNVERIFIED as a precise threshold; open cavities and off-center decay change the math). Fix the water source: reroute a downspout, correct a grade that buries the flare, pull mulch off the trunk. Ants entering the house are a separate pest-control problem, and cutting the tree may not resolve it.
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