How to rid house of ants?
 

Use a Boric Acid/sugar solution.


I have a grease ant problem and I had a bit of success with boric acid and
purina. They stopped eating purina.
Then they went after the canned stuff.
I mixed up some of the "gravy" in the bottom of the can with boric acid. They
managed to eat the gravy and LEAVE the boric acid!!!

I suppose those yankee ants are easier to kill that Florida ants.
These guys even shake off Raid ant and roach spray. If you hit them with the
liquid it kills them but as soon as it dries they walk over it with impunity.
Dursban seems to get them but only if you make an unbroken perimeter. If they
find a 1/4" spot you missed it becomes an ant highway.

Greg wrote:

Use a Boric Acid/sugar solution.


I have a grease ant problem and I had a bit of success with boric acid and
purina. They stopped eating purina.
Then they went after the canned stuff.
I mixed up some of the "gravy" in the bottom of the can with boric acid. They
managed to eat the gravy and LEAVE the boric acid!!!

I suppose those yankee ants are easier to kill that Florida ants.
These guys even shake off Raid ant and roach spray. If you hit them with the
liquid it kills them but as soon as it dries they walk over it with impunity.
Dursban seems to get them but only if you make an unbroken perimeter. If they
find a 1/4" spot you missed it becomes an ant highway.

My wife is a fan of the boric acid stuff, but it never works...

You can buy a 20lb bag of granules for not much at the hardware store
(or a can if you're problems are intermediate for a lot more/ounce) and
sprinkle some of them around...they'll carry it back to the den and
eradicate themselves usually for a good while...occasionally a queen or
enough of a residual egg cache will hatch out to re-establish the
colony, but normally it will take a new crop moving in. Inside the
house it usually will take a while.

I would not suggest this in areas if you have children who crawl on the
floor or very small pets, but the granules are otherwise no problem and
whatever is leftover can be picked up and re-used...the last little bit
is easily cleaned up w/ vacuum. I know, bags are labelled for exterior
use, but w/ the caveat of keeping children/pets away from them....

You can buy a 20lb bag of granules for not much at the hardware store

Ah Amdro ... it moves the nest. Same with Orthene.

Perhaps this hasn't moved to the rest of the country but around here ants
maintain separate food streams into the nest and when one stream starts dying
off they switch food, perhaps even spawning off another nest if the queen was
killed. Contrary to what you heard in Science 1, they will take in orphan
workers from a dead colony. Those are the guys who avoided the poison so the
new best starts out smarter than the original.

I know I can hire a lawn service that will spray 30-40 gallons of poison on my
yard every now and then and hold them down a but but I also think about my
well.
BTW I can go show my neighbors with that service ants crawling around their
house too, a few days after the "inside" guy sprays..

Greg wrote:

You can buy a 20lb bag of granules for not much at the hardware store

Ah Amdro ... it moves the nest. Same with Orthene.

Perhaps this hasn't moved to the rest of the country but around here ants
maintain separate food streams into the nest and when one stream starts dying
off they switch food, perhaps even spawning off another nest if the queen was
killed. Contrary to what you heard in Science 1, they will take in orphan
workers from a dead colony. Those are the guys who avoided the poison so the
new best starts out smarter than the original.

I know I can hire a lawn service that will spray 30-40 gallons of poison on my
yard every now and then and hold them down a but but I also think about my
well.
BTW I can go show my neighbors with that service ants crawling around their
house too, a few days after the "inside" guy sprays..

Sprays are useless for ants.

I don't think ants in your area are in smarter than anywhere else... :)
Virtually any colony/den of any size will indeed have multiple food
streams. I suspect whether workers are/are not accepted depends on
specie as well. I'm not concerned about removing them all outside,
that's absolutely impossible regardless of the lawn size (and I'm
sitting in the middle of roughly 2000 acres, so can't worry about
anything else...

On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 20:08:27 -0600, Duane Bozarth
wrote:

:) Sprays are useless for ants.

It depends on the sprays you use. With what the pros have had come to
the market the last couple of years indoor ant problems are pretty
much not a problem. I'll give a 6 month warranty on my ant work, but
really expect the ants to be gone a year.


Lar. (to e-mail, get rid of the BUGS!!


Dancing dog is back!
http://media.ebaumsworld.com/smartdog.wmv

Lar wrote:

On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 20:08:27 -0600, Duane Bozarth
wrote:

:) Sprays are useless for ants.

It depends on the sprays you use. ...

Qualify that...I meant what's available to unlicensed applicator
(homeowner)...

On 17 Dec 2004 20:57:28 GMT, (Greg) wrote:

Use a Boric Acid/sugar solution.


I have a grease ant problem and I had a bit of success with boric acid and
purina. They stopped eating purina.

I've had success with some of those duel-bait systems, raid double
bait stuff. I usually whip them out when I have an invasion. I find
the first trail before they enter myhouse and setup a bait disk.
After I watch the buggers take the bait I track it's progress. First
day or two, they are swarming all over the disk. By the third day,
the numbers drop and less than a week, they are all gone.

I think the grease side is peanut butter from it's appearence.



Then they went after the canned stuff.
I mixed up some of the "gravy" in the bottom of the can with boric acid. They
managed to eat the gravy and LEAVE the boric acid!!!

I suppose those yankee ants are easier to kill that Florida ants.
These guys even shake off Raid ant and roach spray. If you hit them with the
liquid it kills them but as soon as it dries they walk over it with impunity.
Dursban seems to get them but only if you make an unbroken perimeter. If they
find a 1/4" spot you missed it becomes an ant highway.

later,

tom @ www.FindMeShelter.com

I've had great result with liquid ant bait from www.gardensalive.com and
reccomend it to you.

--

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
www.mormons.com


"Greg" wrote in message
...
Use a Boric Acid/sugar solution.


I have a grease ant problem and I had a bit of success with boric acid and
purina. They stopped eating purina.
Then they went after the canned stuff.
I mixed up some of the "gravy" in the bottom of the can with boric acid.
They
managed to eat the gravy and LEAVE the boric acid!!!

I suppose those yankee ants are easier to kill that Florida ants.
These guys even shake off Raid ant and roach spray. If you hit them with the
liquid it kills them but as soon as it dries they walk over it with
impunity.
Dursban seems to get them but only if you make an unbroken perimeter. If
they
find a 1/4" spot you missed it becomes an ant highway.