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Does anyone know anything about ants?
edy:
I left a pile of extra interlocking stone paver bricks stacked up in a fairly large pile in the backyard a few years ago. One day I walk by and notice there is no space between the stones.... It was filled with sand. I thought to myself, I don't remember putting mortar between these bricks?
One by one I start to remove a brick at a time and was amazed to see what looks like one ant farm (formicariums) after another. Just like those ones made of glass.... except here I am seeing a thin cross-section from each layer of brick because that was all the space available. There are white rice-grainy things EVERYWHERE which I realized were the ant eggs.
Then one year we looked out at the backyard concrete slab stones that are normally gray-white and they were completely black, covered in a massive swarm of ants. I'm not sure what caused them to all of a sudden appear out in the open. Maybe flooding of their undergrown colony? I don't remember the weather exactly but fortunately they never came into the house.
I don't really care if they are outside. How do you make sure they can't get into the house? Is it possible to find and seal up cracks and other paths of entry?
Domagoj T:
Trying to prevent them from getting in is not the way. If they want to come in, they will find a way.
The key is to not give them reason to move inside. Like I said, they are attracted to moisture so try to minimize in, in addition to not leaving food around.
Bud:
I seal up cracks and in the morning before leaving for work spray the outside wall just above ground level and window base with Ant-b-gone which works great at keeping them away. Also I keep a fresh can of peanut butter poison outside of the backyard door to keep them busy.
Dundarave:
--- Quote from: Bud on August 06, 2019, 04:50:56 pm ---How to kill big flying ants? There is a colony under the front porch that seems to disappear for winter and literally flies back in kamikaze-style to under the porch at around end of May each year. They are like 15 mm in size.
--- End quote ---
They sound like carpenter ants to me... I've had various issues with them in the past: they live in (and eat) rotten wood, and always seem to swarm during the first warm days in May (depending on where you are). It would suggest that there's some good rotten-wood eating under your porch, lol...
Many years ago I paid an exterminator to deal with them around my home, and got a lesson: he just followed one or two for a while, found the nest, and sprayed it. That, along with an annual base-spray around the base of the house, and trimming back any branches that might touch the house, kept the place free of them for many years.
Each spring I'd just buy a big can of Raid ant-spray and re-do the base spray around the house. I called it "the line of death", because once an ant treads through it, they've only got a few minutes until they've joined the choir invisible...
If you can get to it, you might want to get under the porch to find the nest and give it and the ground around it a good spritz of the ant spray.
Mickster:
Egg yolks, sugar & borax.
This guy, and loads of others in his comments, swear by it:
EDIT:
He says boric acid in his video, but I am quite sure borax will work......why?
Because my tinkering space is the largish garage under the house, which used to get quite a few roaches coming in.
Since sprinkling 20 Mule Team borax around the outside and near the doorway/windows, I haven't seen a roach or an ant for the last month.
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