Ants vs Borax

shelly

Iv'e always found that a trail of sugar from our house to the neighbours works a treat


Seriously though. We had an infestation in our porch last year and used nothing more than ant killer from B&Q. They were all gone within 2 days.

My cat likes watching ants, I often see her staring at a patch on the lawn and when I go to see whats caught her eye, its nothing more than a few ants :rotfl:

paul_h

The type of ant that tries to make a home in our garden will give you a very painful nip indeed! Any sign of children playing outdoors and they will emerge in force to fight off the intruders. They also seemed to particularly dislike me washing the dog...:mad:

Anyone who lives on sandy soil will know how large and defensive these colonies can become.

The borax mixture will work, but it does take a long time - you have to persevere and just keep putting it down. The best mixture is weak enough so as not to kill the ants quickly - you need them to feed it to the queen to make her sterile. About 1/3 borax to 2/3 icing sugar should work, mixed to a paste with a little water, but even your 10% mix should work eventually.

You may find that the ants aren't interested - in that case try mixing the borax with peanut butter instead. Some types of ants are attracted to protein rather than sugar.

One point however, UK law does not allow you to make up you your own insecticides as all chemicals have to be approved. However I would think your chances of being raided by the police for ant killer will be remote...;)

Steve_xx

perc wrote:

Because they take over a garden if left unchecked and ruin my daughters enjoyment of it.

They don't at all. They're there for a relatively short period and really don't cause any harm or damage to anything. They're there for a reason and you really shouldn't interfere too much with their process. Nobody ever heard of anyone being attacked and fatally injured by ants. Leave them be and they'll go sooner than you imagine. I can't ever imagine that I'll be reading in the papaers that your daughter/s have been killed by them.

AnnieH

I have 3 little kids and so I'm wary of putting lethal concoctions of stuff down to kill ants.

I put baby powder down in the garden and/or kitchen. They really don't like it. Don't know if it does them any harm but they soon do a disappearing act when I chuck it at them.

tim_n

recently we updated the orchids on our kitchen shelf - this being because my father, orchid enthusiast had claimed his latest victim!

Unfortunately it seems there was a nest in the bottom and we found hundreds of ants the next morning searching the food... So down went the poison next to the bowl and the plant got new protein...

black-saturn

perc wrote:

Because they take over a garden if left unchecked and ruin my daughters enjoyment of it.

Your lucky yours are in the garden. I have an ants nest in the dining room of my house in the brickwork :eek: I've tried everything to get rid of them including borax, over the counter remedies, powders, poisons and you name it. I'm thinking I'll have to call pest control in and pay them to get rid of it.

sponix

I use a product called "Armillatox" for killing ants.

Mix about 5:1 with water. Stick a length of copper tube into the nest in the middle and place a funnel in the top.

Pour the solution in until it's all absorbed by the nest. Be aware It'll kill the grass if you spill any!

Repeat in a few days if the nest survives..

(Armillatox is sold in garden centres as a patio cleaner. It was sold as a pesticide until the EU decided to ban it under some pesticides act.)

sponix

Steve_xx wrote:

Nobody ever heard of anyone being attacked and fatally injured by ants.

I did!

http://www.amjmedsci.com/pt/re/ajms/abstract.00000441-200603000-00005.htm;jsessionid=GLCTJnHGpGWR1QHnMMXMFQ3pGpN0D31KzW5GTyT1rQKCmlVLcZ4L!-818462210!-949856145!8091!-1

Steve_xx

sponix wrote:

I did!

http://www.amjmedsci.com/pt/re/ajms/abstract.00000441-200603000-00005.htm;jsessionid=GLCTJnHGpGWR1QHnMMXMFQ3pGpN0D31KzW5GTyT1rQKCmlVLcZ4L!-818462210!-949856145!8091!-1

Had to happen in America, of course!

perc

Steve_xx wrote:

They don't at all. They're there for a relatively short period and really don't cause any harm or damage to anything. They're there for a reason and you really shouldn't interfere too much with their process. Nobody ever heard of anyone being attacked and fatally injured by ants. Leave them be and they'll go sooner than you imagine. I can't ever imagine that I'll be reading in the papaers that your daughter/s have been killed by them.

Lol we have lived in our house for 8 years and for 8 years we have have several ant nests in our garden - they never go they just get bigger and more of them!