Annoying ants move or die

September 15, 2020 – I don’t know about you, but my love of locally grown vegetables and fruits not only brings home the produce but also the little critters who mount them. Once I eliminated the fruit flies (See Articles, Other, Fruit Flies Have Moved In), I noticed an influx of ants followed.

Ants need food, water and shelter to survive. The queen stays in the nest to produce more ants and is fed there by young worker ants. Older worker ants leave the nest to find food; they leave a chemical as they drag the food to the nest and younger workers. More worker ants follow the chemical trails to carry more food home. Knowing these facts about ants helps us to keep down or end ant infestations in our homes.

According to The Spruce, the best way to eliminate ants in the home is to not admit them in the first place. That means keep the home clean by sealing food, sweeping the floor and emptying the garbage regularly. Those melon rinds in the garbage attract ants and fruit flies big time.

We can repel the worker ants hunting for food by surrounding our homes with a variety of natural repellants – citrus fruit peels, coffee grounds, chalk, cloves, mint, pepper, white vinegar and salt. Like us, ants stay away from odors they don’t like. If we use the repellant daily until the ants no longer approach our homes, we have succeeded.

If the onslaught of younger workers arrives anyway, the next steps involve identifying the chemical trail, sealing the entry points and setting out the bait. The trail leads other workers between our homes and the nest; it should not be eliminated until the ants are. Since the ants are so small, they enter our homes through tiny cracks around windows and doors. When we seal those cracks, the workers can’t get in.

Then our problem is with the workers that remain in our homes. We can smother them, destroy their exoskeltons or bait them with poison, which they carry back to the nest. According to Western Pest Control, cinnamon suffocates ants that inhale it, food grade diatomaceous earth gradually dries out their bodies, and poisoned bait both attracts them and motivates them to take it to their queen. WPC also states that a 50/50 white vinegar/water solution kills ants when it is sprayed on them.

How often are you involved with ant control? How far are you willing to go with it? If you don’t want to kill the ants, what must you do?