Hi. I know ants are part of life, I just don't want them in my house or overtaking the berms in my yard. Do Grant's Ant Stakes work? Anyone know.
Ants-how to get rid of them
Grants are not organic, so this may not be the place to post this question.
Among some organic options, you could try Terro, which uses a boric acid solution mixed with a sweet syrup. Ants eat it and take it back to the nest, and it ultimately eats them from the inside out. I have had limited success with this product. For the house, you can use the diotomaceous earth dust, across which ants will not travel. You sprinkle it across doorways and windowsills. This is pretty effective, but in an old house like mine, they come through any little crack anyway.
I ultimately used a chemical product which is ALWAYS my last resort, but it worked very well for keeping them out of the house (my only concern). It is called Amdro. If you use it, keep your pets away from it, which is pretty tough, as you have to sprinkle it around the perimeter of your house. After the ants stopped coming in, I swept the stuff up and threw it in the trash, as it made me nervous for my puppy. They have not returned and this was last fall that I first applied it. I still have ants in the yard, but it is okay with me (not fire ants, just the regular ones).
I use Tanglefoot on my fruit trees to keep them from farming scale.
I hope this helps. I really had a bad problem with them in the house CONSTANTLY, so I took drastic measures.
It's tough because I don't want to injure predators of the ants, it's just that with the berms I have are filled with ants. Maybe I can rent an anteater.
I hate to say this, but ants are sort of a permanent problem here in CA. I use the Terro when they get too close to the house (or into the house) but without resorting to lots of toxic chemicals you really need to pick your battles with them and realize that they're going to be somewhere in the yard. And even with the toxic stuff I don't think you'll get rid of them completely--they'll always be back!
Yeah, I don't so much mind them in the yard as long as they are far from the house. Is Terro a liquid product that I can spray the perimeter of the house with?
The one I buy is in little bait stations, but I think you can buy bottles of it too. I'm not sure if it's sprayable or not--I know the stuff in the bait stations is a gel. I don't think you would spray the perimeter with it though, it's not a poison that will kill them before they get in the house. It's a bait, they are attracted to it and take it back to the nest with them and then the poison gets them and the other ants in the nest. So when you see ant activity in a particular area, put a bait station there and they will find it.
here in Indiana laundry borax with a little sugar works very well,i read that the borax makes them lose their trail,have no idea if it will work for you .as for being an organic,i know its not harmful.try it .i sprinkle it at 6ft intervals around the foundation of the house,garage,shed
This message was edited Apr 8, 2009 1:16 PM
That's pretty much what Terro is...the active is boric acid and they put something sweet in there to attract the ants. I don't think the boric acid or borax makes them lose their trail, the way it works is it attracts them and then they take it back to the nest...if it destroyed their trail it wouldn't work very well because you want them to follow the trail back to the bait station to take even more back to the nest.
Thanks everyone. Think I'll grab some Terro at Lowe's.
I doubt these are fire ants--I think they are in southern California but they haven't made it this far north yet to Mary's area. The ants we have around here are the Argentine ants and I think the control measures are somewhat different.
Thanks for the information about fire ants. I know they're not fire ants,though, so I'm not worried about that. I'm sure they are Argentine ants. They're not the same ants I remember seeing as a kid in Pennsylvania. We used to have these giant, black slow moving ants as well as a tiny brown ant that was much less aggressive than the ants I have seem to be.
I lived in South Flordia for over 30 years and this is how I dealt with fire ants - hopefully it will work with other ants, too.
After you peel a fresh orange/grapefruit, take the peel outside, hover over the ants' nest, break the peel into small pieces and drop it on top of the nest. The gas from the peel is heavier than air and will sink into the nest, killing any ants it comes in contact with. Unfortunately, ants' nests are very deep, so this method only works for those ants near the surface.
We had a grapefruit tree, so another solution was to throw the peels over the yard, and chop them up with the mower.
I know this sounds crazy, but it worked!
i've got tons of mandarin peels. I'll give it a try!
And that doesn't work for you, crazymary, try this stuff:
http://www.ecowise.com/product_info.php?products_id=185
I've never used it, personally.
Thanks!!!
We use beneficial nematodes to control ants, fleas, mites, roaches, snails & slugs, grubs, and a variety of other soil-borne pests. It's amazing how well they work! We started off doing 4 applications a year, but now we just do 2, once early spring and once late fall.
how does it work and where do you get them? I"m basically concerned about the perimeter of my home, but to control some of the ants in the berms in my yard would be good.
Beneficial nematodes are microscopic organisms that seek and destroy pests in the soil. They come refrigerated in a clay mixture that you apply using a hose-end sprayer. We try to do it just after a rain and at dusk. You have to do it while it's cool because the nematodes will die if they can't get down into the soil before the heat of the day. If it hasn't rained in awhile, we water our yard and then apply.
http://www.arbico-organics.com/beneficial-nematodes.html
Thanks
My aunt swears that diatomaceous earth works for her for all ants.
I don't want to get too far off on fire ants, but as for me and my fire ants, I've done the "Texas two-step" with mine: OMRI certified spinosad granules sprinkled on the lawn for general control, followed by a drench of orange oil diluted in a bucket of water on the mound. The latter tends to kill grass, though.
I have read that the imported fire ant (Solenopsis invicta) control has gotten err...out of control here in Texas and that we're often killing off a native fire ant (Solenopsis xyloni) that keeps other insects under control. Basically, what I'm seeing these days is don't just kill ants to kill ants unless there's a specific problem they're causing you.
This article from the Nature Conservancy's Invasives web site:
http://www.invasive.org/gist/moredocs/solinv01.rtf (Rich Text Document)
describes how to tell, but darned if I think I could tell the difference from the text.