Ants are undoubtedly amazing creatures. With large, complex societies, empire-building techniques, the good thing is that they are so small and have not yet developed an overwhelming hive mind. But if their active life position runs counter to your understanding of order, you will have to take action.
- What types of ants are sensitive to boric acid?
- How does boric acid work against ants?
- Top 5 recipes for preparing ant bait
- How to Place Boric Acid Ant Baits
- Duration of fighting ants with boric acid
What you need to know about garden ants
The ants themselves in the garden are beneficial, by the way. But many species of ants feed on honeydew, which is secreted by aphids that feed on plants. Ants protect aphids from other predators, such as ladybugs, to provide a reliable food source. Increased aphid activity in your garden, especially when they have bodyguards, can have disastrous consequences for plant life, as aphids can move unhindered through your garden, sucking all the juices out of your plants.
Before you turn into Rambo and unleash righteous fury on the unsuspecting ants in your garden, ask yourself these questions:
- Are they in an isolated area of my garden?
- Are they a threat to me or my family?
- Are they threatening my home?
There is no need to fight just for the sake of fighting. Now that the moralizing is taken care of, let's get down to business. A fairly simple and effective way to get rid of ants is to spread baits with boric acid. Boric acid can be found at your pharmacy as an ingredient in some medications, including eye drops. You can also find boric acid powder in the fertilizer section of large garden centers. We will be happy to tell you how to make an effective remedy against garden ants from boric acid powder.
Why are ants bad?
Many people are perplexed - what is wrong with ants, what harm can they cause to a person if they do not attack him. But it's not that simple. If these insects occupy the house, you can say goodbye to your supplies of sugar, honey, jam, flour and cereals. They will eat some, drag something back to their nest, and in return leave a lot of excrement and corpses (ants often stick and drown in sweet liquids).
In the food reserves that ants store for their brood, pathogenic bacteria and fungi often develop. And these insects also run all over the house, including the toilet and garbage can. From there they can bring infections or parasite eggs into the kitchen. Pets are also unlikely to be happy with their new roommates, especially since ants bite, which is painful and fraught with an allergic reaction.
If ants have entered an apartment, they can be found almost everywhere
Ants in the garden behave no better: their vast homes can be found in any garden bed, in a flower garden and under trees. This harms plants and their roots. The fruits of soft, sweet berries, such as strawberries and wild strawberries, are also at risk: ants like their juice.
Ants are ready to go to great lengths to eat sweet strawberries.
Some species of garden ants breed aphids. And it spoils plants and is nutritious food for other insect pests.
Ants breed aphids, which harm plants.
What types of ants are sensitive to boric acid?
Boric acid-based ant repellent is not effective for all types of ants. Poison baits work best against house ants, but boric acid powder has been reported to be effective against garden ants, but forager ants, or fire ants, are not as susceptible to boric acid baits. Therefore, several approaches to the projectile will be required :)
You can learn more about other areas of application of boric acid in this detailed material >>>>
The pestilence of red ants
Unlike black ants, red ants are united. One colony can have up to 3-5 nests. If one of the anthills is endangered or destroyed, then this nest will soon be populated by relatives and quickly restored.
At home or in an apartment, these are the insects’ favorite places:
- building foundation;
- behind the wallpaper;
- in the pantry;
- behind the stove;
- in a warehouse;
- behind the electric heater.
R
The red species of ants is active throughout the year. As the weather cools, they require moist, warm conditions and darkness. That is why they move to home buildings for the winter.
Inside the living quarters the following are used as food:
- food products;
- home water supply system;
- garbage;
- electricity supply;
- leather items;
- natural fabrics;
- paper and wood.
People living in a house or apartment, including animals, often become victims of red ant bites.
It is very difficult to get rid of insects, as they can quickly adapt to unfavorable living conditions.
How does boric acid work against ants?
Baits with boric acid powder act as contact-intestinal agents, and those based on sweet water (wet) act mainly as intestinal ones. Gradually, as it accumulates in the insect’s body, its intestinal effect appears.
Boric acid is effective against ants because it affects the functioning of their nervous system: serious disturbances lead to insect paralysis after a few hours. A very tiny amount of poison is enough to kill one ant, so this is a very effective and cheap remedy. The simplest application is to sprinkle boric acid powder in places where ants most often make their route or at the entrances to an anthill.
The option of using dry and liquid baits gives the best results. The ants not only eat the bait themselves, but also take it to the anthill, to the misfortune of their relatives.
Remember that the bait should be inaccessible to pets and beneficial insects.
Reviews
- Alena: “After purchasing a private house with a large plot, our family was faced with the problem of ants. Previously, at the dacha, I did not consider them harmful, because the truth about “forest orderlies” has been known since childhood. There were a lot of ants in our new garden; the area was almost entirely sandy, so they felt right at home. The main problem was the appearance of insects in a residential building. We bought a house in the winter, so no one took this option into account. They did not dare to use toxic chemicals; however, children and pets could have been accidentally harmed. Having searched for a suitable recipe on the Internet, we made many traps, which were laid out both in the house and on the site. I had to move to my parents for a couple of days, periodically visiting for control. The children stayed away from home for a few more days until my husband and I put the house in order. Boric acid worked perfectly, at least all the ants disappeared from the house, and there were much fewer of them in the garden. We didn’t completely destroy them, but I kept the recipe for myself just in case.”
- Igor: “On the summer cottage, ants appeared suddenly and in large numbers. I don’t know why this happened, but after that aphids immediately appeared and the plants withered before our eyes. At first, I put all my efforts into destroying aphids, but all methods turned out to be ineffective. My father suggested a recipe for killing ants so that the aphids would not spread further. I used boric acid in its pure form, and progress immediately appeared. Now the area is almost completely cleared of these pests, but on his advice he did not completely remove the ants. The problem has not been completely resolved, but next year I hope to get rid of the pests completely.”
Top 5 recipes for preparing ant bait
Some ants have a sweet tooth, while others are more inclined to seek out fats. Before choosing a recipe, mix boric acid with a couple of different foods to see which one attracts the most ants. You can dissolve sugar in water, use honey, vegetable oil. Here are 5 basic recipes for anti-ant baits:
1 Dilute 5 g of boric acid in 100 ml of warm water, add 1 tsp. jam and 2 tbsp. l. Sahara. Mix the mixture and pour into a flat container, which is best placed near ant paths. Cover the top from the rain with a piece of plastic.
Grind 2 2 egg yolks with ½ tsp. boric acid, make small balls (the size of a pea or smaller) from the resulting mass and place them in key places.
3 1 tbsp. mix a spoonful of water with 2 tbsp. l. glycerin, add 1 tsp. honey, 1/3 tsp. boric acid and 1.5 tbsp. Sahara. Mix everything thoroughly and roll bait balls from the mixture. This recipe is good because the bait remains wet and soft for a long time.
4 3 medium boiled potatoes in their jackets, 3 boiled yolks, 10 g boric acid, 1 tsp. Sahara. Grind the peeled tubers and yolks, add boric acid and sugar to the mixture. Mix thoroughly again and roll the resulting dough into balls.
5 Mix 1 tsp. boric acid powder with 1 cup of aromatic food. If using sugar water, add about 8 tsp. sugar to 1 glass of water, and then add 1 tsp. boric acid. If ants are not as attracted to your baits as you would like, reduce the amount of boric acid to 1/2 teaspoon. per cup of 1 percent solution.
It is important to remember that increasing the amount of boric acid in the bait does not increase the effectiveness of its use - the ants will die before reaching the anthill, and the colony will simply raise other worker ants to replace it.
Use fat or glycerin as an adhesive for boric acid powder for baits.
Meat balls made from acid and minced meat
To attract insects to the poison, it must be made tasty and aromatic; for this purpose, minced meat is added to the main component. The following recipe helps to remove ants from the garden:
- 4 tbsp. l. minced meat is mixed with acid (10 g), a pinch of salt;
- mix the mass thoroughly, divide into small lumps;
- the latter are distributed near the pests' home.
Meat is a delicacy for ants, so they will quickly eat the poisoned balls. After a few days, the number of pests will sharply decrease and continue to decline until they completely disappear from the garden.
How to Place Boric Acid Ant Baits
You can use a small jar, such as a baby food jar, with holes in the top, bottle caps, 2-inch drinking straws, wax paper, or tin foil. Ants can get into most containers. If you see a line of ants, place the bait directly in its path. Don't skimp on baits—it may take 20 or 30 to effectively tackle an ant problem.
Baits with boric acid can be placed at the entrance to the anthill
Why do ants appear in the house?
Ants are insects that live according to a clear hierarchical pattern. Their families are numerous, they are controlled by the queen ant, which hatches the larvae of new insects.
When you find an ant trail, count the number of ants moving along it and multiply the number by 10. And this will be the approximate number of inhabitants of the anthill.
The worst thing is that there may be two or three such anthills near the apartment. But in a garden plot it’s difficult to even guess the number of nests with ants.
House creeps multiply quickly because they live in warm rooms. In just one month, their initial number increases by hundreds!
Duration of fighting ants with boric acid
Using a homemade boric acid ant killer is not an instant solution to your ant problem. It is a slow-acting remedy, and each ant that brings it into the colony shares it with only a few other ants. Staged poisoning may take some time to reach the queens and effectively kill the colony. It may only take a few days for you to notice a decrease in the number of ants near the bait, but it may take three to four weeks for the colony to be completely eradicated. Change the bait every few days to keep it fresh. Ants disappear en masse when boric acid is used approximately 2-4 weeks after the start of use.
Other ways to control ants on your property.
Dry bait
To prepare them, the powder is mixed with sugar, after which the dry bait is scattered along ant paths and places of increased pest accumulation (near fruit crops, anthills). The dry poison acts somewhat slower than the solution, but is very effective. After just a week, there will be almost no insects left in the garden, and within a month they will disappear completely.
Reasons for the appearance of ants in the apartment
Ants are quite hardworking living creatures that are useful, but when they appear in a person’s home, ants become harmful creatures. In nature, ants can be found everywhere, and in fairly dirty places, such as trash cans, various landfills, etc. Moving into human housing, they carry pathogens of various ailments on their paws. When they appear in an apartment, they can be found in various bulk food products, which does not bring much joy to the residents.
Ants are attracted to a person’s home by a number of factors, such as:
- The presence of bread crumbs, spilled tea, compote, jam or honey on the dining table.
- Storing bulk food products in accessible form.
- The apartment is warm and humid.
- Free access to water.
- The ants wait out the winter in the apartment.
Good to know! Determining the place where the ants' nest is located is not at all difficult. As a rule, a living path of ants stretches from food to the nest, carrying food to the nest for their relatives. The task is also simplified because these insects are diurnal and rest at night.
Is boron powder dangerous for people?
This is the question that owners of houses and apartments ask themselves when they find ants crawling in their homes.
Boric acid is not classified as a toxic substance and is recommended for use in residential areas to kill pests.
But when treating problem areas in the house, you must take precautions.
If even a minimal amount of the drug enters the child’s body, an allergy will occur. Here, caring for their inquisitive children falls on the shoulders of parents. The amount of acid used to prepare bait is small, so there is no harm to the body.
Important! Animals and small children should not have access to the drug and prepared baits.
But when working with the substance, you must wear rubber gloves. Prepared baits should be placed on disposable dishes, which should then be thrown away. After all work, hands should be washed with running water and soap.
How to prevent infection again?
No one is immune from the appearance of impudent ants in the house, but if you follow certain rules and conditions, you may never see them or prevent re-infestation.
What is needed for this?
- Firstly, you probably guess that ants come to your house in search of food, and therefore you must always wipe off crumbs from the table, stains from cooked food (especially sweet ones) and throw out garbage in a timely manner.
- You should also not leave unwashed dishes in the sink for a long time, because they contain leftovers from your lunch or dinner.
- Don’t forget that pets also have the right to cleanliness, and if you try to keep your furry pet’s bowl clean, you will protect your home from insects. Uneaten food, porridge, etc. – all these gifts from your cat or dog will appeal to the ants.
- And be sure to store food in closed cabinets, boxes and bags (especially sweets). And if you notice the first signs of the appearance of ants, immediately take measures to exterminate them.
honey trap
Honey and boric acid are also very effective in pest control. This bait is prepared like this:
- Take half a glass of water, pour 5 grams of acid into it and stir until it is completely dissolved.
- After this, add two teaspoons of honey to the resulting solution (if you don’t have it on hand, you can replace it with thick, sweet jam).
- Next, add two more tablespoons of sugar to the honey mass.
- How to poison pests with this? The resulting mixture is poured into small plates and placed near places where insects accumulate.
- The baits are renewed within two weeks, since only during this time can the pest colony be completely eliminated.
Important: for such bait to be more effective, access of insects to any other products should be limited. It is advisable to temporarily remove all food from the apartment and leave it for several days. Then the ants will definitely eat the bait and die.
Ant traps made from boron powder for a summer cottage
Harmless-looking small ants in your garden should not cause trouble. But, in addition to benefits, they also cause a lot of trouble. Ants, for example, attract huge swarms of aphids. And these pests destroy both plants and crops in the beds and garden.
Before starting to destroy insects in the garden, determine the location of the anthill.
There is no need to worry that boric acid will negatively affect plants: on the contrary, it enhances the development of green spaces and serves as a fertilizing agent.
Corn bait
Cornmeal is harmful to ants in itself. When eating a corn treat, the insects' digestive tract swells and they die.
For effectiveness, you can add boric acid to the flour.
For 100 grams of corn flour, take a bag of powder and mix.
The dry mixture is scattered along the ant paths, not forgetting to scatter it around the anthill. The procedure is performed as often as possible. At least 4 times a week.
Potato and yolk trap
And even though the ants always have something to snack on in the garden, they never refuse a treat.
They prepare such a fragrant bait. Boiled 2 medium potatoes are mixed with two yolks. Add 2 tbsp to this mixture. l. granulated sugar and two bags of boric acid. Mix everything well with a fork.
Make small balls from the mixture and place them where the ants crawl.
Lures need to be updated every week. After 2-3 weeks there will be much fewer insects.
Bait with ash
To make a poisonous mixture you will need wood ash. It can be purchased at grocery stores or hardware stores. And if you are preparing barbecue at the dacha, then it is enough to collect the remains after burning branches and firewood.
For the trap, take 1 kg of wood ash and three bags of boric acid (10 grams each). Mix the ingredients and sprinkle the mixture over the anthill. The effect is enhanced when it rains after the procedure, then the poison penetrates the nest.
Sweet treat for ants
And yet, sugar baits remain the most effective in killing ants, because they love sweets very much. To prepare dry poison you will need:
- powdered sugar;
- rice flour;
- soda;
- boric acid.
All components are taken in equal quantities. Combine, mix and scatter near and on the anthill. The composition is harmful to insects not only due to intoxication and paralysis from boric acid. Also, rice flour swells greatly in the ant’s digestive system and leads to death.
Powdered sugar acts as bait; its grains are so small that they are easily carried by insects into nests.
Despite the fact that the pharmaceutical drug is safe for people, safety rules are followed when using it. It is important not to handle baits without gloves. All containers for preparing mixtures must be either disposable, glass, or ceramic. After manipulation, the containers are thoroughly washed.
When using boron powder in the garden, the remains of the traps are buried deep in the ground.
In order for the destruction of uninvited “tenants” to be successful, it is advisable to update the bait once every three days. Otherwise, they will lose their “aroma” and attractiveness to ants.
It is worth noting that insects cannot be quickly destroyed using boric acid. At a minimum, the war with ants will take two to three weeks.
A few additional tips
How to poison ants with boric acid quickly and effectively? To do this, you need to follow some rules for working with this poison. They provide:
- The use of disposable utensils for preparing baits, regardless of whether you use liquid boric acid or powder.
- Restricting access of children and animals to baits. Even though they cannot cause serious harm to their health, they are quite capable of causing allergies or food poisoning.
- Use of personal protective equipment when preparing bait. It is recommended to work with acid using thick rubber gloves. If you are allergic, you should also use a medical mask.
- Consistent use of such tools. Those who want to know how to remove brown insects should use bait based on this product for at least two to three weeks. Otherwise, they simply will not give the desired effect.
If you follow these recommendations, boric acid will get rid of red ants in your apartment pretty quickly. The main thing is not to stop using this product ahead of time and make sure that pests from neighbors do not enter the house.
Prevention at home
- Clean the house, take care of the trash can.
- Keep the table clean and do not leave crumbs or food behind.
- Keeping the bags tightly closed is what interests the ants most.
- Always take out the trash.
- If you have an animal at home, do not leave food in the cup all the time.
An important factor in exterminating ants is that the entire entrance or house must be eliminated. If there are a lot of ant families, then they will eventually come to you. Of course, you can use expensive insecticides, but they evaporate, which can lead to poisoning, and if you have pets, this is not permissible. And although the product will be advertised, the effectiveness of destruction is zero.
10 ways to get rid of ants in the garden
Residential extermination
In an apartment or house, ants spoil food, settle in the trash can and are capable of transmitting various diseases. You need to give a poisoned piece of food to a worker ant, who will carry it to the queen - the queen of the colony. Dichlorvos, various sprays, fumigators and other chemicals are useless, since they kill the ants that are in the house, but do not spread the infection into their home.
Boric acid, entering the body of an ant, causes poisoning, causing the ant to die
The repellents used with mint, pepper, wormwood, geranium, cloves, parsley, garlic and onions do not work. The location of the colony was chosen due to its inaccessibility. This could be a kitchen cabinet and a compartment for bed linen, a photo album, a computer mouse and an iron.
Expensive repellers will not bring a positive effect. For years, proven borax will destroy all insects in a living space.
