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Post by susannah on May 4, 2015 14:00:22 GMT
It's that time of year. The ground is unfrozen and the ant hills are having their annual population explosion. The sandy soil up here seems really good for the development of the biggest ant hills I've ever seen. They're huge, and they're everywhere. I need advice on how to get these under control - or at least attempt to get them under control. I prefer not to go the chemical route. We're on a lake, and I don't want the chemicals running into the water. Did I mention we have lots and lots of those huge ant hills? Oh yeah. Several times. I've heard pouring grits in the ant hills will help get rid of them. True, or not true? What other non-chemical options are there? After three years of this, I'm tired of trying to co-exist with the ants - they won't co-exist, they always want to take over.  Any and all suggestions are greatly appreciated! |
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Post by my3boys on May 4, 2015 19:50:02 GMT
I don't know but could use some suggestions too.
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Post by tenbusybees on May 4, 2015 20:24:22 GMT
Funny little story about grits and ants. We had just bought our first home and it had a HUGE problem. Having young babies I didn't want to use chemicals so I used grits. I poured a little pile on the counter and ants immediately swarmed it. In minutes the pile was gone. So I poured more grits out and laughed at them and what would soon be their death. A month later and countless cans of grits I called the bug guy. He came out and treated the house and found their nest. Which was in our patio wall. He and my husband pulled done the siding and I found the two of them studying and poking a big pile of grits. The ants were hoarding the grits but not eating it.
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Post by Deleted on May 4, 2015 20:47:09 GMT
Funny little story about grits and ants. We had just bought our first home and it had a HUGE problem. Having young babies I didn't want to use chemicals so I used grits. I poured a little pile on the counter and ants immediately swarmed it. In minutes the pile was gone. So I poured more grits out and laughed at them and what would soon be their death. A month later and countless cans of grits I called the bug guy. He came out and treated the house and found their nest. Which was in our patio wall. He and my husband pulled done the siding and I found the two of them studying and poking a big pile of grits. The ants were hoarding the grits but not eating it. I didn't know that about grits! But I recently tried it with cornmeal. Trouble is that our cornmeal is NON-GMO cornmeal so I wasn't sure if it would work anyway. I don't mind the ants outside, but every spring we get some on the kitchen counter. Yuck! I poured 3 little piles of cornmeal on the counter and we haven't seen one since. Would it have worked that fast? I see where they walked through the cornmeal, but don't know if that is what has caused them to disappear or not. We still have ants outside. |
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Post by wolfmom on May 4, 2015 20:53:17 GMT
Huge ant hills? I hope they're not fire ants.
People will chime in giving all kinds of advice, some easy, some complicated, including lighting a fire to the hill.
I've found the simplest for ants, including fire ants is Diatomaceous Earth. Get yourself a 50 lb bag of the stuff at a feed store. I get the food grade kind and toss it by the handfuls on the ant hills. Sometimes I take a heavy rake and bust up the large hills first. Within a few days they're gone.
It is not waterproof so has to be reapplied if it rains or you water.
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Post by Bear Foot Farm on May 4, 2015 21:36:03 GMT
Most ants cannot swallow large particles of food, and many can't swallow solids at all, so none of the "they swallow it and explode" myths have any basis in fact
Reality is if you want to get rid of ants, you have to use chemicals that will kill the queen.
With the minute amounts used, runoff will not be an issue
You can make your own bait by mixing sugar or fats with borax or boric acid, or you can simply buy a bait type insecticide for treating mounds
Used properly, these chemicals won't harm anything aside from the target species
Without chemicals you will have to learn to live with most ants
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Post by susannah on May 4, 2015 23:42:03 GMT
Funny little story about grits and ants. We had just bought our first home and it had a HUGE problem. Having young babies I didn't want to use chemicals so I used grits. I poured a little pile on the counter and ants immediately swarmed it. In minutes the pile was gone. So I poured more grits out and laughed at them and what would soon be their death. A month later and countless cans of grits I called the bug guy. He came out and treated the house and found their nest. Which was in our patio wall. He and my husband pulled done the siding and I found the two of them studying and poking a big pile of grits. The ants were hoarding the grits but not eating it. Okay, kind of counterproductive, then. The more I'm reading on it, the more I'm thinking the grits explosion story is just that, a story. |
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Post by susannah on May 4, 2015 23:43:44 GMT
Huge ant hills? I hope they're not fire ants. People will chime in giving all kinds of advice, some easy, some complicated, including lighting a fire to the hill. I've found the simplest for ants, including fire ants is Diatomaceous Earth. Get yourself a 50 lb bag of the stuff at a feed store. I get the food grade kind and toss it by the handfuls on the ant hills. Sometimes I take a heavy rake and bust up the large hills first. Within a few days they're gone. It is not waterproof so has to be reapplied if it rains or you water. Nope, not fire ants. The one good thing about this incredibly cold climate is that fire ants and killer bees are not able to handle it. So far, anyway. I will look into Diatomaceous Earth - thanks! |
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Post by susannah on May 4, 2015 23:49:03 GMT
Most ants cannot swallow large particles of food, and many can't swallow solids at all, so none of the "they swallow it and explode" myths have any basis in fact Reality is if you want to get rid of ants, you have to use chemicals that will kill the queen. With the minute amounts used, runoff will not be an issue You can make your own bait by mixing sugar or fats with borax or boric acid, or you can simply buy a bait type insecticide for treating mounds Used properly, these chemicals won't harm anything aside from the target species Without chemicals you will have to learn to live with most ants Yeah, I guess the idea of grits was too easy to be true. You just saved me from buying large quantities of grits, though. Thank you! After living with those ants for three years, I'm not ready to concede. YET. I knew they were bad up here - lived up here as a child (but don't remember the ants, specifically) and spent a lot of time here as an adult visiting family and friends, and vacationing. And thinking "Wow those are some incredibly honking large ant hills - and wow they have a lot of ants up here." Living here full time - I'm not so philosophical about ants anymore. I fantasize about their demise daily. |
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Post by Bear Foot Farm on May 5, 2015 2:50:02 GMT
DE works on hard shelled insects by cutting through their outer covering and dehydrating them. It will not be taken back to the nest, and therefore will not harm the queen, and it won't work at all once it gets wet Buy the grits and eat them yourself with lots of butter!! If you want to get fancy, mix in some bacon, shrimp and cheddar cheese Many adult ants can't swallow solid foods, but their larvae can, and they will then secrete a liquid the adults can ingest. That's why some ants carry food back to the nests, and it's why liquid ant poisons tend to work well This talks about fire ants, but applies to other species as well: msucares.com/insects/fireants/control.html |
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Post by mollymckee on May 5, 2015 12:54:46 GMT
When you get tired of trying to fight the ants organically, here's how I used to get rid of fire ants when we lived in TX. I would sprinkle Amdro on the hill, then kick it, quickly, and the ants would storm up to fight the intruder. They took the Amdro into the hill and killed it. My DM was allergic to fire ant bites, we could not take any chances she might get bitten. Because I put the Amdro right on the hill and upset the ants, it took very little to kill the hill.
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Post by Deleted on May 6, 2015 0:46:11 GMT
Human urine, but after a good night of drinking. PBS had a guy with natural lawn and garden tips and was selling his book as part of the sponsorship. Don't ask how I remembered that tidbit, but I did.
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Post by susannah on May 6, 2015 14:45:33 GMT
When you get tired of trying to fight the ants organically, here's how I used to get rid of fire ants when we lived in TX. I would sprinkle Amdro on the hill, then kick it, quickly, and the ants would storm up to fight the intruder. They took the Amdro into the hill and killed it. My DM was allergic to fire ant bites, we could not take any chances she might get bitten. Because I put the Amdro right on the hill and upset the ants, it took very little to kill the hill. Hmm...I never thought about kicking the hill to get them stirred up/swarming. Thanks. |
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Post by susannah on May 6, 2015 14:47:43 GMT
Human urine, but after a good night of drinking. PBS had a guy with natural lawn and garden tips and was selling his book as part of the sponsorship. Don't ask how I remembered that tidbit, but I did. After a good night of drinking, huh? Too bad drinking's involved. Otherwise my 4 year old grandson - who takes delight in being able to "go" outside and does this any chance he gets up here - would be my first volunteer to help out this way. |
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Post by Deleted on May 7, 2015 3:16:48 GMT
Fire ants are out in force here in NE TX. We've had a very wet spring, and the fire ants are particularly bad tempered after a rain. Busy moving from place to place to avoid flooding, I guess, but they will swarm anything that comes near. Hate those buggers, and Amdro is the only thing I've found to help.
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Post by Rustaholic on May 12, 2015 0:45:36 GMT
I had an older friend that took out a large ant hill with a gallon of gasoline.
He just poured it all over the hill and lit it up.
I took out one across the road with a full can of Raid Ant & Roach spray.
When you say, "the biggest ant hills I've ever seen." are you talking about the 16" to 2' in diameter ones?
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Post by susannah on May 12, 2015 14:52:51 GMT
I had an older friend that took out a large ant hill with a gallon of gasoline.
He just poured it all over the hill and lit it up.
I took out one across the road with a full can of Raid Ant & Roach spray.
When you say, "the biggest ant hills I've ever seen." are you talking about the 16" to 2' in diameter ones? Oh, most of them are bigger than that. Several are like 5' or 6' around, at least what's above ground. Dh swears that the hill out front is one big ant hill, although I think it's a couple different colonies in that area. There's definition between them. While our neighbors have big ant hills, too, we seem to have more. Maybe it's because the prior owner put a lawn in here - they like that, or it just makes them way more visible than the dirt/sand/gravel soil would. |
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Post by Rustaholic on May 12, 2015 15:10:35 GMT
I had an older friend that took out a large ant hill with a gallon of gasoline.
He just poured it all over the hill and lit it up.
I took out one across the road with a full can of Raid Ant & Roach spray.
When you say, "the biggest ant hills I've ever seen." are you talking about the 16" to 2' in diameter ones? Oh, most of them are bigger than that. Several are like 5' or 6' around, at least what's above ground. Dh swears that the hill out front is one big ant hill, although I think it's a couple different colonies in that area. There's definition between them. While our neighbors have big ant hills, too, we seem to have more. Maybe it's because the prior owner put a lawn in here - they like that, or it just makes them way more visible than the dirt/sand/gravel soil would.
Maybe just for fun I would pull the rototiller across a few of them then use the flaming weed torch on them.
Then I would get serious.
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Post by sss3 on May 12, 2015 16:38:59 GMT
We have fire ants. I researched and tried everything. Finally had to have a Professional spray them. When the ant hills were there, thinking there were 15 of them. I got bit; more than once, when I was trying to kill them. Really hurts.
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Post by Rustaholic on May 25, 2015 0:17:55 GMT
We have fire ants. I researched and tried everything. Finally had to have a Professional spray them. When the ant hills were there, thinking there were 15 of them. I got bit; more than once, when I was trying to kill them. Really hurts.
We are both up North where we do not get fire ants.
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Post by sss3 on May 25, 2015 0:45:47 GMT
I'm in NC. Ants here are fire ants.
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Post by merks on May 25, 2015 4:00:27 GMT
I have not read all the replies, but for us we light a fire on top of the hill. Don't just light the hill on fire, build a fire like you would in a camp fire and keep it going for several hours. You have to get the ground below good and hot. seems to work for us.
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Post by Deleted on May 25, 2015 4:37:18 GMT
The OP doesn't want to use chemicals (ie. pesticides) but nowadays I just buy ant bait for black ants. But in the past, I've poured boiling hot water into the ant hole. With repeated applications, it works. Another that I've used is homemade ant bait. It doesn't use pesticides but uses the natural trace mineral boron. Just a pinch of boron with a smidgen of honey in hot water, mixed well, and placed in a jar with the top punched with holes. Just used enough mixture to coat the inside of the jar. The ants will take the substance back to the nest and eventually all will be eliminated. Don't believe me about the boron?.... "In biology, borates have low toxicity in mammals (similar to table salt), but are more toxic to arthropods and are used as insecticides" (from the link en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boron). I bought the boron at a hardware store, a powder contained in a small bottle. |
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Post by Bear Foot Farm on May 25, 2015 11:57:58 GMT
Disturbing the hills will only make them move a short distance.
Pouring gas on the ground can contaminate the ground water.
Anything that doesn't involve a bait that kills the Queen doesn't really solve the problem
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Post by susannah on May 25, 2015 14:09:43 GMT
When we lived in the city - and had much smaller ant colonies - I took sadistic pleasure in the boiling water method. And it worked quite well. Here, the distance I'd have to carry huge amounts of boiling water make that...not a good option. I'd probably do more damage to myself than to an ant colony, trust me on that one. Funny, but just yesterday I said to my husband "I wish I could just give the little beasts a boiling water bath like I used to."
We do have the perimeter of the house professionally treated for ants and spiders (and cluster flies in the fall - don't get me started on cluster flies, they were the bane of my existence for years until I hired the pest control service). So we almost never have ants IN the house (if we do, it can usually be tracked to bringing in wood for a fire in the fireplace). We are a good distance back from the lake and the pitch of the front yard (the opposite side from the lake side) is such that I'm willing to try chemicals there. Rain would make any runoff flow to the street, not toward the lake. That's also where the biggest ant hills are, in the front. But with so many big ant hills, I don't know that I'll ever win this battle.
I really appreciate all the feedback and suggestions!
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Post by Rustaholic on May 25, 2015 15:15:56 GMT
Disturbing the hills will only make them move a short distance. Pouring gas on the ground can contaminate the ground water. Anything that doesn't involve a bait that kills the Queen doesn't really solve the problem That is my point. While they are moving to a new home the weed torch will get them. |
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Post by Bear Foot Farm on May 25, 2015 18:09:28 GMT
Disturbing the hills will only make them move a short distance. Pouring gas on the ground can contaminate the ground water. Anything that doesn't involve a bait that kills the Queen doesn't really solve the problem That is my point. While they are moving to a new home the weed torch will get them. You are only killing a few hundred at most, while leaving a hundreds of thousands underground. They won't move over the surface. They will simply abandon that hill and make a new one The hills are nothing more than entrances and ventilation for the huge underground network of tunnels Unless the Queen is killed, she will replace the few you killed in less than a day: www.controlfireants.com/fire-ant-colonies.htm |
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Post by paquebot on May 26, 2015 3:33:17 GMT
The kind that the OP has is one which relies on a single queen. They are not normally a problem indoors and mostly eat insects. Some of the "trash" on the mound may contain legs of crickets, grasshoppers, etc. hort.uwex.edu/articles/field-ants/Martin |
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Post by susannah on May 26, 2015 13:44:21 GMT
Martin, thank you for the link! That's exactly what we have - field ants. After reading the advice regarding the need for making channels for insecticide that are deep enough to get to the queen - well I guess I now know why the times I tried sprinkling Terro granules on top of the mounds...did absolutely nothing for my ant problem.
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