Ant Bait Recipe

[bower]

I'm seeing ants in the house, ants in the greenhouse. Not a lot yet, but dreading the aphids that will follow.
So I need to mix up an ant bait, but I've lost the recipe I used last time, and what I'm seeing on the internet is pretty diverse in what proportion of sugar to borax.
I do recall reading that too much borax vs sugar is not good, they won't take it.
Also some won't take liquid vs solid so it matters how you mix. Last time I tried using a box of expired pectin in the recipe to thicken it up a bit, and that worked wonderful, the ants took to it and problem was solved. It kept well in a closed container, too - much longer than the bought stuff.

Do you make ant bait, and if so, what's your recipe?

[Greenvillian]

I've used the first recipe on this site. It works well for a while and then they lose interest I found. I put it in reusable small glass jars (recycled food jars) with holes punched in the lids.

https://boraxantkiller.com/borax-ant-killer-recipe/

[bower]

I've read that the adult ants can only eat liquids, so they won't get any once it skins over.
OTOH I also suspect that they learn to avoid the stuff after a while.
I just saw a queen ant this evening on some brassicas that are flowering in the greenhouse. The flowers sure smell sweet, so it may be a hard sell to attract them to plain sugar as a substitute. Hmmm....

[Cole_Robbie]

I have found with Taro that several little drops spread around are better than one bigger spot of it. The ants are able to get the small drops before they dry out.

[zeuspaul]

I had ant problems (still do). In a week end home I made my own borax and sugar mixture. I used powdered sugar and placed it in a blender with borax. It took a couple of weeks and eventually the ants disappeared. I don't recall the recipe. I think it is better to err on the side of too much sugar. The goal is to have the ants take the bait back to the hive.

More recently I tried Terro with little success. It was getting expensive. Reading the reviews on Amazon someone had a borax/sugar recipe. This was liquid sugar and borax. I experimented with several ratios. Too much borax and the ants refused to take the bait. I backed off the borax until I got a good flow of ants. They kept eating the bait for about a month and then I gave up.

I don't have the recipe.

Now I use Raid ant gel. The ants are gone in a day or two. It is supposed to kill the hive like borax but I don't believe it because the ants will show up somewhere else in a few weeks. Apply it again and eventually there is good success.

My problem ants are tiny brown/black (sugar ants?). What works well for one type of ant may not work for another. Also I believe some ants have a universal (shared) hive so you can not get the whole hive.

[Kurt]

We use ant gel.Amazing how the ants take it away to the hives.I had to resort to putting the gel on our gardenia 10 foot round tree.The ants were coming out of hive up the branches harvesting that wooly aphid soot.Run a bead close to the ant trail,circle around here and there.Works really well.But it is expensive.

[Kurt]

This gel has really easy dispersal around door jambs,windows,thresh holds.
https://offers.pearcommerce.com/picker/ ... 6vEALw_wcB

[MissS]

I have always used 1 part borax to 3 parts sugar and as much water as you need to dissolve the mixture. DE is good around doorways and their paths.

[Tormahto]

The best aunt bait that I know of is rum cake.

Ohh, ant bait.

[bower]

1 part borax to 3 parts sugar seems to be the upper limit.
Maybe that is the best approach, since the more is in it, the faster it will kill them. I don't actually want to make them suffer.
OTOH if they persist into the summer and stop taking it, I could try the less-borax approach.

@Tormato any chance of being adopted as an aunt?

[Setec Astronomy]

Bower, what kind of ants are these? Here in NJ we really only seem to have two types, pavement ants and carpenter ants. You can tell them apart because the carpenter ants have tool belts (sorry, old joke an old workmate always used to tell whenever carpenter ants or carpenter bees came up).

[bower]

Aphid tending black ants is what I have at present, afaict. Saw a couple of queens and they are fairly small cw the carpenter ant queens. So I could call em sugar ants, or picnic ants... but not pavement ants. No pavement here in the woods.
These suckers farm aphids, and after their arrival a catastrophic aphid farm on the favorite plants (peppers, napa cabbage, carrots, cilantro...) is the usual result.
Saw several adults in the greenhouse this morning so I mixed up my first trial bait of the season on the 3:1 ratio:
3 tbs sugar
1 level tbs borax
1 tbs expired pectin powder
Added a splash of hot water - a generous splash. Consistency runny and TBH a bit gritty although I stirred as well as I could.
This liquid got splashed by the spoonful into cracks and crevices around windows and sills in the greenhouse, and used it all up. It was noon and sunny, everything watered and all vents opened before I left to go on a job.
I did see an ant while doing that so I squashed and then baited the ant by drenching in the sweet.
Most ants will carry off their dead and (afaik) feed on them, so it's a strategic move.
Returning this evening, I didn't see anyone running around in the greenhouse. So far so good....

[Setec Astronomy]

Well, as I think you know, "pavement ant" is kind of a misnomer, since they live in the ground and come up through cracks in the pavement which is where you see them. Of course out in the grass they are all over, you just can't tell. I'm not aware we have any of those aphid-tending ants around here.

[JRinPA]

What I use and it knocks them stiff:
indoors
1-1/2 c water (12floz)
1/2 c sugar
2tbsp borax
mix and pour into a bottle marked POISON and use it to fill milk caps. Easy to throw away that way when they dry up.

Outdoors (worked on wood near hummingbird feeder)
2 part borax
1 part powdered sugar


Either way, the more active ants, the better. More workers carrying the poison back at one time just smashes the colony.

[bower]

I saw and squashed a half dozen ants in the greenhouse yesterday, and then I restrained myself (with great difficulty) and just watched a couple, got to see one get onto a mason lid with still wet mixture, and leave via the exit hole which I now know where it is. Not blocking it yet.

[Kurt]

Found out that in my terra cotta containers which I always place the broken shards before filling.Some hives or beginning of showed eggs in that bottom.I have a well that produces a lot of water,I will drench a targeted area and you can find hives and watch the workers flee with the eggs.Fixed the pot problems with trays,they can’t escape or enter through water.We do have a Bull ant,red/ orange,maybe 3/8 inch,and the do attack you and actually latch on and bite you with their pinchers.Now we did get rid of the mounds of red ants that are visible about 6/12 inch high.My visiting nephew stepped in one,they covered him in seconds ,bit him at least 200 plus.I haven’t seen him since(lol).Thier tunnels are like minuture mines.There are artists who pour molten metals in these,wait until they cool and dig them out and sell them for big ducats.

[Kurt]

https://theevolutionstore.com/aluminum-anthill-casting/

[JRinPA]

I saw and squashed a half dozen ants in the greenhouse yesterday, and then I restrained myself (with great difficulty) and just watched a couple, got to see one get onto a mason lid with still wet mixture, and leave via the exit hole which I now know where it is. Not blocking it yet.

Yep same thing I had to go through...don't kill that one, leave those two be. If you hunt them the population will stay stable, that's nature. But mass poison, that takes out most everything and takes weeks or hopefully months to rebuild.

If you really want to kill them quick, leave some catfish guts in the sink for a couple days. There is one little silvery fatty bit that they go absolutely nuts for...I found this out doing scientific research.

[bower]

If you really want to kill them quick, leave some catfish guts in the sink for a couple days. There is one little silvery fatty bit that they go absolutely nuts for...I found this out doing scientific research.

my sympathies to your former wife or girlfriend.

[JRinPA]

Yeah they were stacked 4 or 5 high on that trying to get a taste...