| General > General Technical Chat |
| Does anyone know anything about ants? |
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| windsmurf:
Shouldn't we be talking about how to electronically eradicate ants? |
| Electro Detective:
--- Quote from: windsmurf on August 06, 2019, 11:45:42 pm ---Shouldn't we be talking about how to electronically eradicate ants? --- End quote --- Give them a free Windows 10 ant OS to install, they'll have enough to sort out, with no spare time to wander about :D |
| NiHaoMike:
--- Quote from: drussell on August 06, 2019, 03:50:37 pm ---Yeah, Borax is the only way I've ever been successful eradicating ants. I generally use the 7% Borax liquid stuff sold under many different brand names in the 100 ml bottles, (Ant-Out, Ant-B-Gon, Raid makes one, etc. all basically the same formula) but it is not available in BC anymore, outlawed by the province for some reason, (apparently indiscriminate and excessive use can attract and kill bees?) That stuff works GREAT! Once you find a run right close to the nest, you put JUST A FEW DROPS on a non-porous surface, whether it is a vinyl floor or a piece of waxed paper if the surface they're on is porous. I have probably a 90+% success rate eradicating colonies that way over the years. As long as you're close enough to the nest and they actually take the bait, it virtually always works. Basically if you get ants surrounding your drops and taking it all back to the nest, they'll end up feeding some to the queen, she dies. By about a week later you'll see only very small, confused, baby ants scavenging outside the nest because they're the only ones left once the queen is gone, then the nest will be toast. Generally then if it is accessible, you can physically destroy the nest at least partially so some new colony doesn't just move in. I've never had any success with home-mixed borax, but I may give it a shot since we can't get the pre-mixed liquid here anymore. (I'll have to stock up when I get back to Calgary... My sister even tried getting some down in the US the other day and the wal-mart there didn't stock it either.) --- End quote --- Artificial sweetener mixed with a little water also sometimes works to get rid of ants, if they actually eat it. --- Quote from: windsmurf on August 06, 2019, 11:45:42 pm ---Shouldn't we be talking about how to electronically eradicate ants? --- End quote --- It doesn't take much current to zap ants, and a flyback transformer will supply plenty. Problem is that in my experience, it must be high frequency AC since the electric field from DC just blows the ants away before they're close enough to draw an arc. |
| vk6zgo:
At my place, we have had, on & off, an invasion of small, black ants who don't like sugar at all, so all the sugar based baits are a waste of time. Unfortunately, all the baits I can find are sugar based. The only thing that seems successful is a mixture of peanut butter & borax, used in mprovised bait containers, or "repurposed" bait containers of the useless type, with all the sugary stuff removed & replaced with this mixture. At the moment, it's Winter, so we are having a break from theirr attentions, but I'm sure, come Spring, they'll be back! |
| bsfeechannel:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharaoh_ant |
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