ants what to do

[Whisper66]

I landed face down in a fire ant bed when I was young. Not an experience I'd wish on others. Took several days for swelling to go away. In the meantime one eye swelled shut and 1/2 mouth didn't work too well due to swelling.


Sent from my iPhone using Early Retirement Forum

 

[harley]

I'm probably as ant-huggy as anyone here, and I'm fine with killing fire ants. Especially in your yard. It's not like you'd be damaging a species population. I remember back when I was getting my bio degree one of my professors told me there were more ants in an acre of land than there were humans on the planet. I'm not positive he was right, but probably at least pretty close.

 

[AlbaCrush]

I use to get ants in my kitchen. The first time I used terro liquid, it freaked me out because hundreds of ants came inside to eat the liquid. I ended up spraying all of them with a spray. Someone at work recommended it and said that's how it works. I only use it outside.

 

[harley]

I use to get ants in my kitchen. The first time I used terro liquid, it freaked me out because hundreds of ants came inside to eat the liquid. I ended up spraying all of them with a spray. Someone at work recommended it and said that's how it works. I only use it outside.

If you put the Terro at the point where the ants are coming in, they won't gather in your living area. It's usually a window or door or where a pipe or wire comes through the wall. You want to see hundreds of them eating the liquid, that's a good thing. In a few days after that, you won't see any of them. Muerto.

 

[nash031]

After my Field Guide to Winning the Long War with Argentine Ants, if anyone's interested in my Idiot's Guide to Brute-Force Removal of Running Bamboo (hint: a quality spade shovel, leather gardener's gloves, some plumbing skills if you have lawn sprinklers, and lots of Roundup), let me know. Also, I recommend canceling your gym membership for a month and saving some dough.

If there's two things in this world at which I'm now an expert, it's killing Argentine ants and running bamboo.

 

[Sarah in SC]

Nash I will happily sign up for a subscription if your third volume has fleas as the subject.

We have fire ants. Don't bother killing them, too much yard. We do battle sometimes with carpenter bees. And those weird little yellow triangle winged biting flies. No other ants. But lord, I spend a ton of money on flea control!

 

[nash031]

Nash I will happily sign up for a subscription if your third volume has fleas as the subject.

We have fire ants. Don't bother killing them, too much yard. We do battle sometimes with carpenter bees. And those weird little yellow triangle winged biting flies. No other ants. But lord, I spend a ton of money on flea control!

Fortunately, I haven't had to deal with that with dogs... Yet.

 

[target2019]

Raid heavy duty bait. Home stores have it. Comes in small plastic shells.

 

[kitesurfer2]

my wife hired her bug sprayer friend to treat our property inside and out for 'carpenter' ants. The chemical he used controlled the ants, but it also controlled the humming birds. we had no humming bird visits for 2 years, until all the chemicals had dissipated.

 

[Barboh]

We have used Amdro for fire ants for years, and it works great. I just had to buy more, because I looked out the window to the back and saw maybe 6 huge mounds. These are not fire ants, they are the big black ones. But, while I was at Lowes buying the stuff, a man told me that he had been told you can use cinnamon around their mounds, They supposedly hate the smell.
Good luck!

 

[target2019]

If you have pets be conservative and cautious. I've found that bait in the square plastic holders is much easier to hide from pets.

 

[Easypick]

We had a lot of rain this year and I guess that was the cause for two colonies of acrobat ants get into our walls through the weep holes. Ants will be attracted to either a sweet or protein bait. I bought two KM AntPro Liquid Ant Bait Dispensers and baited them with Gourmet Liquid Ant Bait (sweet). One colony was gone in about two weeks. The second, larger one took about another week and required the use of protein bait too - Advance 375A Granular Ant Bait. I left the liquid ant bait dispensers out in the areas where the colonies where located as a preventive. Also, Delta Dust works well as a spot treatment behind outlets and crevices. Cheaper in the long run (especially if you have to retreat) and just as good as an exterminator in my opinion.

 

[BTravlin]

Another satisfied user of the Terro baits. Works like a charm!

 

[Letj]

Spray vinegar daily around the perimeter of the area. If they're in the house, spray around the kitchen sink and counter tops. This avoids use of chemicals and always work for me.


Sent from my iPhone using Early Retirement Forum

 

[RonBoyd]

On second thought, maybe they are not so benign... for the sake of this, let's remove Fire Ants (I concur with previous comments):

Leaf Cutter Ants Chew Up Photographer's Camera Gear

 

[ERD50]

Spray vinegar daily around the perimeter of the area. If they're in the house, spray around the kitchen sink and counter tops. This avoids use of chemicals and always work for me.


Sent from my iPhone using Early Retirement Forum

From wiki:

Vinegar is a liquid consisting of about 5–20% acetic acid (CH3COOH), water, and other trace chemicals...



Acetic acid /əˈsiːtᵻk/, systematically named ethanoic acid /ˌɛθəˈnoʊᵻk/, is a colourless liquid organic compound with the chemical formula CH3COOH (also written as CH3CO2H or C2H4O2).

Acetic acid is the second simplest carboxylic acid (after formic acid) and consists of two small functional groups, an acetyl group (sometimes symbolized as Ac) and a hydroxyl group (AcOH); it can also be viewed as a methyl group and a carboxyl group linked. It is an important chemical reagent and industrial chemical, used primarily in the production of cellulose acetate for photographic film, polyvinyl acetate for wood glue, and synthetic fibres and fabrics.

Acetic acid is used as a solvent in the production of terephthalic acid (TPA), the raw material for polyethylene terephthalate (PET). In 2006, about 20% of acetic acid was used for TPA production.[29]

Acetic acid is often used as a solvent for reactions involving carbocations, such as Friedel-Crafts alkylation. For example, one stage in the commercial manufacture of synthetic camphor involves a Wagner-Meerwein rearrangement of camphene to isobornyl acetate; here acetic acid acts both as a solvent and as a nucleophile to trap the rearranged carbocation.[45]

It has been reported that, in 12 workers exposed for two or more years to acetic acid airborne average concentration of 51 ppm (estimated), produced symptoms of conjunctive irritation, upper respiratory tract irritation, and hyperkeratotic dermatitis. Exposure to 50 ppm or more is intolerable to most persons and results in intensive lacrimation and irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat, with pharyngeal oedema and chronic bronchitis.

They're putting those darn chemicals in everything nowadays! When's it gonna stop!

-ERD50

 

[aja8888]

From wiki:



They're putting those darn chemicals in everything nowadays! When's it gonna stop!

-ERD50

Yeah, they are even in your body as part of your makeup.

 

[REWahoo]

Yeah, they are even in your body as part of your makeup.

I would have never guessed you used body makeup...not to mention ingesting it.

 

[aja8888]

I would have never guessed you used body makeup...not to mention ingesting it.

I'll post a photo later....

But I need to get back to the AI thread for a while.

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

Some small brown ants showed up in the kitchen this spring. I got some ant killer dust with boric acid in it and dusted the ground around the foundation. Haven't seen an ant since.

 

[eytonxav]

Amdro or Over n Out

 

[imoldernu]

A few minutes of reading about ants... in Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant

As pests
See also: Ants of medical importance

The tiny pharaoh ant is a major pest in hospitals and office blocks; it can make nests between sheets of paper
Some ant species are considered as pests. The presence of ants can be undesirable in places meant to be sterile. They can also come in the way of humans by their habit of raiding stored food, damaging indoor structures, causing damage to agricultural crops either directly or by aiding sucking pests or because of their stings and bites. The adaptive nature of ant colonies make it nearly impossible to eliminate entire colonies and most pest management practices aim to control local populations and tend to be temporary solutions.
Some of the ants classified as pests include the pavement ant, yellow crazy ant, banded sugar ants, the Pharaoh ant, carpenter ants, Argentine ant, odorous house ants, red imported fire ant, and European fire ant. Ant populations are managed by a combination of approaches that make use of chemical, biological and physical methods. Chemical methods include the use of insecticidal bait which is gathered by ants as food and brought back to the nest where the poison is inadvertently spread to other colony members through trophallaxis. Management is based on the species and techniques can vary according to the location and circumstance.

Important to identify the species of ant. There are 12,000 identified species, and an estimated 22,000 species in total.

The current challenge at our camp, is the almost invisible ghost ant..

". Ants thrive in most ecosystems and may form 15–25% of the terrestrial animal biomass"

Did you know they are related to bees? "The family Formicidae belongs to the order Hymenoptera, which also includes sawflies, bees, and wasps"

"Termites, although sometimes called 'white ants', are not ants. They belong to the sub-order Isoptera within the order Blattodea. Termites are more closely related to cockroaches and mantids."

Aren't you glad you read this?

Now, the anatomy:

 

[frank]

I used some terro bait traps yesterday. The ants just swarmed around them. I have read the reviews and it says it takes a couple days before the poison works, but from what I am seeing I am hopeful. these are just the common ants that are around the yard, not fire ants, carpenter ants or termites.

frank

 

[dallas27]

Speramint /peppermint oil, they hate it and will avoid any area it is spayed, plus it smells nice and lasts a really long time.


Sent from my iPhone using Early Retirement Forum

 

[Nemo2]

- When you find ants in a room, resist the temptation to kill them individually. Find out where they're coming from and stop it there. This means tracing them back to their entry point, not just finding where in the house they're coming in.

We've seen half a dozen solitary ants inside the house within the past week.....today we tried to follow one, (taking turns, of course, so he wouldn't suspect he was being tailed), but it seems that he ducked into a doorway, put on a fake mustache, and we lost sight of him.

Curses, foiled again!