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.
Bait preparation
Boric acid is dangerous only if ingested uncontrolled. And if for an adult the lethal concentration is 15-20 g of a crystalline substance, then for a child 4-5 g is enough. Therefore, if you decide to get rid of ants with boric acid, be sure to protect your children by completely eliminating the possibility of contact with a toxic substance. And if there are pets in the house, don’t forget to take care of them too.
Security measures
To properly prepare boric acid for ants without experiencing severe consequences, use four tips.
- Correct dosages. Do not increase the dosage of the drug used. An ant that has received a lot of poison simply will not have time to carry the poison to the nest.
- Work with gloves. Boric acid itself will not do anything to your hands. But the smallest particles can remain or get under the nails. And even after carefully washing your hands with soap, it is not always possible to completely get rid of them. Needless to say, how dangerous subsequent cooking can be?
- Disposable tableware. When creating poison for parasites, never use food utensils. Use disposable plates and spoons, which you immediately throw away after use.
- Laying out baits. If there are children or pets in the home, use extreme caution. Send the children to visit grandma, and give the pets to friends for a while. If this is not possible, then carefully consider the places where you can pour powder or spread bait.
Poisoning with boric acid can be indicated by abdominal pain, vomiting (sometimes even with blood), diarrhea, severe weakness, and convulsions. If these symptoms occur, be sure to consult a doctor.
4 tricks to make sure this method works
Having taken all safety measures and chosen the most suitable boric acid recipe for ants in the apartment, consider four more recommendations.
- Spring-cleaning. Clean the entire apartment thoroughly. Eliminate crumbs and clean hard-to-reach places. Even look under the baseboard. Wipe countertops and cabinet surfaces with vinegar. It not only cleans, but also disinfects surfaces.
- Product protection. Food should not be left on the table. Remove all products. If the ants find something to feed on, they will simply ignore the prepared baits.
- Access to water. Water lovers will definitely be looking for an opportunity to drink. Therefore, carefully place the bait directly in the sink, not forgetting to place paper under it.
- Efficiency of baits. Over time, the poisonous “treats” for ants lose their potency. Therefore, during the first week, replenish old reserves with new ones every two to three days.
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 >>>>
How does the substance affect ants?
To begin with, it should be noted that boric acid is available in the form of a powder or solution and is sold in pharmacies. The drug is inexpensive, but copes well with insect intoxication. The substance has no odor and dissolves well in water.
The acid has a contact-intestinal effect on ants. It is capable of destroying an insect, even if it simply ends up on its cover and does not enter the digestive tract. The components of the substance are able to penetrate the body through the chitinous shell and corrode the walls of the pest’s organs. If it enters the stomach, the product causes severe intoxication, dehydration and paralysis of the body. No matter how boric acid gets into the ant's organ systems, it will die over time.
A few crystals of the substance hidden in a fragrant bait can infect an entire colony if they enter their lair as a tasty-smelling trophy brought by a prey ant. Also, the possibility of infection of the colony appears if the poisoned individual dies and is eaten by relatives.
Even a minimal amount of boric acid entering the body can cause sterilization of both the female and the male ant, which will ultimately lead to the destruction of the genus.
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.
Why do insects appear?
There are many types of insects in the world that are known for their wide range of habitats. These individuals adapt well to environmental conditions and are able to survive even in extreme situations. Only a few individuals are usually found in houses: house ants and pharaoh ants. They are distinguished by their red color and can only live next to humans.
Usually the reason for the appearance of insects in the house is poor cleaning of the premises. If you neglect rooms, leave food on countertops and do not remove crumbs, this can attract arthropods. All they need in a human home is food. And if it is easy to get, then they will visit you often. Even if you keep your home clean, leaving food out in the open can attract insects. They love sweet foods that are high in carbohydrates, so they are always attracted to sugar, honey, bread and various fruits. It is also dangerous to leave dirty dishes in the sink for a long time: particles of uneaten food will become excellent food for ants (and not only for ants, but also for cockroaches). Another bait can be the trash - it is also a source of uneaten food. Therefore, it is better to use buckets with a sealed lid, which will make it difficult for pests to get inside.
It is very easy to bring pests into your apartment: they can be on things or crawl into a bag of groceries when you put it on the ground. If your neighbors poison their home with parasites, then “guests” may run into the house from them.
Wooden houses can also harbor dangerous species - carpenter ants. They can quickly ruin a building. These arthropods love a moist environment and warmth. If the humidity in a wooden house is high, fungus may eventually appear in it. It is eaten by insects, destroying part of the wood. Ultimately, the tree will begin to collapse, which will have a bad effect on the entire structure. Therefore, you need to quickly get rid of “guests”.
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.
Beer trap
Ants will never refuse alcoholic drinks, so beer can serve as an excellent bait. To get rid of pests in your garden, you need to:
- 1 tbsp. l. yeast pour 4 tbsp. l. warm water;
- add 1 tbsp. l. jam and the same amount of white powder;
- Stir the mixture and pour into several small saucers, which are then placed next to anthills and other places where insects accumulate.
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
Baits based on boric acid for use in the garden
It would seem that seemingly harmless ants that appear on a personal plot should not cause much trouble. However, insects can attract huge swarms of aphids, which damage garden and vegetable plants.
Before you start fighting ants in the garden, locate the anthills. This way you will know for sure where to place the bait. Do not worry that boric acid will negatively affect garden crops; on the contrary, the effect of the substance enhances plant growth and performs an additional function as a fertilizer.
Corn mixture
Cornmeal itself is already destructive for the ant. Attracted by the aroma of the corn delicacy, ants eat the product, which greatly swells in the digestive tract and causes fatal injuries.
To enhance the effect, you can add a little boric acid to the product. Prepare the required volume of poisoned mixture at the rate of 100 g of corn flour per 10 g of powder, and scatter along the ant paths and around the anthill. Please note that the procedure should be performed as often as possible, at least once every 2 days. Otherwise, the product will not work due to high humidity and the influence of various physical phenomena.
Potato-egg bait
Although there is always something to eat in the garden, ants are still attracted to additional aromatic foods.
Boil a few potatoes and 2 hard-boiled eggs. Mash the boiled potatoes and yolks with a fork and mix. Also add 2 tbsp to the mixture. spoons of sugar and 20 g of boric acid powder. Make balls and place them around the ant nests. Renew the bait about once a week. After 14-20 days you will notice that there are fewer insects in the garden.
Wood ash mixture
To make bait you will need wood ash. You can buy it ready-made at a hardware store or simply take the remains of burnt firewood after cooking a barbecue or from the oven.
For 1 kg of ash you will need 3 ten-gram bags of powder. Mix the ingredients and sprinkle directly onto the anthill. The effect will be enhanced if there is light rain after the procedure, and the poison will penetrate deep into the nest.
Sweet, effective bait
One of the most effective means in the fight against ants are sugar baits, since insects are very greedy for sweets. To prepare dry poison you will need:
- powdered sugar;
- soda;
- rice flour;
- boric acid powder.
Combine the ingredients in equal proportions and scatter on the anthill. The product is destructive to ants not only because of its toxic effect, but also due to the rice flour, which greatly swells in the insect’s digestive system and causes irreparable damage. Powdered sugar acts as bait, the grains of which are very small and are easily carried by foraging ants into their nests.
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.
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.
User reviews on the results of using the product
Everyone who has tested the effect of boric acid on ants in action leaves mostly positive reviews. Many note that the product copes with the destruction of insects not only in apartments, but also in personal plots. Most housewives are very pleased with the result, noting that the complete destruction of the entire colony is carried out in about 30 days.
Rarely, but still there are negative reviews, which are based on the fact that ants do not touch treats mixed with boric acid. Perhaps in this case the recipe is violated and the poison content in the bait is simply exceeded, which leads to a negative result.
Boric acid has proven to be an effective means of killing ants. You can use the substance either in its pure form, scattering it in places where ants gather, or preparing aromatic baits for further transportation by the poison-delivering ants to the nest. The product works both in apartments or houses, and outdoors, for example, in a garden or vegetable garden.
How to deal with ants in the garden
Ants are most annoying while they are in the garden. If you want to know how to kill ants, use a few proven methods:
- to scare away ants, place a rag soaked in kerosene . calendula next to currant and gooseberry plantations - it attracts ladybugs, which actively eat aphids;
- tie the tree trunk with cotton wool or wool soaked in a carbolic solution . Also create a palm-wide soot and linseed oil
- Attach bottles of sugar water and lubricate their necks with syrup or anise oil ;
- if the ants have settled at the roots of the tree, use ordinary or bleach . Sprinkle quicklime on the ant heaps and pour water over them. A 20% solution of carbolic acid will also put insects to flight;
- Indirect attacks on ants should be done when fighting aphids. of the branches into a bowl of soap-salt or soap-ash solution and rinse there. Such a “shower” corrodes the skin of the aphid and it becomes unviable.
To prevent ants from running through trees, use hunting belts soaked in kerosene
Safety rules when using boric acid
Although boric acid is considered safe for humans, be sure to follow safety precautions when using it.
- Do not come into contact with the substance without gloves.
- Protect the respiratory tract with a cotton-gauze bandage.
- For mixing, choose either unnecessary dishes that you can simply throw away, or glass or ceramic ones that are not affected by chemical reactions. After all manipulations, wash the used container thoroughly.
- If you place baits on napkins, paper or plastic covers, discard them after use.
- When using boric acid in the garden, bury the remaining poison deep into the soil.
- If children or pets live in the house, choose inaccessible places to place baits. If a pet or even a child eats one ball of poisoned bait, most likely nothing bad will happen. With systematic use of the substance, severe poisoning of the body is possible.
