Ants - Urghhh

[MilkandHoney]

We've had it with the ants invading our home! They are the Argentine black ant variety. We tried the completely organic remedies to no avail. We have just set out a mixture of honey, borax and a little water to see if this works. We were told this works slowly but gets spread throughout the colony before acting. The ants are crowding to get to it. Is this going to work? Any tips are appreciated.

[FreightTrain]

perhaps if you let us know where on the rock your located, we could help?

[JHinCA]

Not sure what kind of ants we have had trouble with here, but they are the small black house ants. I used boric acid in sugar water, don't remember the proportions but you could google it. It takes awhile to kill off the whole nest, but in the meantime they are focussed on eating the bait instead of getting in your cupboards.

[ladycat]

I don't know if this will be any help at all, but I'll throw it out there.

When I lived in Florida, me and all my neighbors had an awful problem with sugar ants. I don't like using chemicals, but I tried everything, and they continued to invade. No matter how well you seal up the food, they find a way to get into the container.

Then, a long-time resident told me to catch one of the little brown lizards that run around outside and put it in the kitchen. She said it would live behind the refrigerator and I would have no more ants. She was right! I did that, I very seldom saw the lizard, it did live behind the fridge, and I had no more ants!

I tried to tell my neighbors about that solution, and they would look at me like I was crazy. They thought a lizard was unsanitary. But one lizard on the wall is much less sanitary than thousands of ants in your food, to my way of thinking.

[Jillis]

Aspartame powder will kill any kind of ants. Open a few packets of nutrisweet and deposit it where you have seen ants. They will gone very quickly!

[ladycat]

Originally Posted by Jillis

Aspartame powder will kill any kind of ants. Open a few packets of nutrisweet and deposit it where you have seen ants. They will gone very quickly!

Or maybe not....

http://www.snopes.com/humor/iftrue/antpoison.asp

[moonwolf]

try cinnamon.

[ericjeeper]

But here in Indiana. Use Terro. excellent stuff. is a liquifide Borax. Back in the good old days it was arsenic

[MilkandHoney]

Thanks for all the replies. We'll give the boric acid/borax with honey/sugar time to work.

[gobug]

I was a professional exterminator for more than 15 years. Ants own the earth, we just fool ourselves with paper and lawyers.

Now the Argentine ants are a bit difficult. They can have large colonies with large territories. Since only 10% of the ants have outdoor jobs you barely get an idea how bad the problem is by how many you see.

The boric acid needs to be less than 5% of the weight of the food. Normal boric acid is not water soluable and does not mix easily. If it is too strong it could eliminate the nest killing impact and disourage or prevent the poison from getting down to the larvae who make the edible food for all the workers.
There is a product called TimBor which is a water soluable formulation of the boric acid and it will effectively mix with any food you add. I added it to the juice from a large can of salmon because one customer told me he had tested a bunch of foods for them and it was their favorite. It worked well. In terms of the mix, I had a baby bottle of juice and had to add a quarter teaspoon of Timbor.

There is no doubt in my experience that baits are the most effective way to treat for problem ants. I usually had at least 5 different commercial baits (not sold to consumers) and occasionally had to work to find something they liked to eat. The key is placing the bait in their paths and out of reach of your pets and children. It doesn't take a lot to kill an entire colony. But it could take following them home to evaluate their community size, to place extra bait near their hill, and to monitor the bait performance. Amdro is a bait often used for fire ants, but I have found it desirable by many ants. It is also available in some commercial outlets, but I don't know about your area. Grits are the food, and hydromethylnon is the poison. It is nearly one tenth of the toxicity of boric acid and the percentage in the product is about 2%. A tablespoon is enough to kill a single good sized colony.

Good luck. Just pray Arnold is not an ant.

[jasper]

Until I moved here to North Carolina, I had no idea what an ant problem could be. I tried everything to kill them. It never worked. For every ant you kill there are a gazillion others that you don't see.

I use those Amdro baits and they are wonderful. Sometimes when I get an invasion I think the ants will never go away, but they always do. The one good thing about the baits is that the ants don't go anywhere else. They just go to the bait and take it back home.

[MilkandHoney]

We've tried everything mentioned above and more (except the lizard thing as we can't find 'em this time of year) and they keep coming back! Time to call in a professional!!!

[dragonfly1113]

Originally Posted by ericjeeper

But here in Indiana. Use Terro. excellent stuff. is a liquifide Borax. Back in the good old days it was arsenic

I use the Terro and it works. Sometimes the ants can be persistant but just keep using the terro and after a few weeks they will be gone.

[comfortablynumb]

Ive mixed aspritame with powdered sugar and it DOES kill ants.
The little ones that get in the kitchen anyhow.