Ants in Your Home?
I can sympathize with Suzette M., who wrote in about trying to free her raised beds of fire ants. I had normal black ants a in a bed of mine a few years ago, and I ended up just ignoring the bed for the rest of the season.
If that happened to me today, I would try the same Ant Juice that works so well inside my house.
My brother is very health conscious, and he wanted a way to get rid of ants inside the house without risk to his pets. He found a recipe for simple ant control, and he shared it with me.
My Recipe for Simple Ant Control
Borax Ant Juice Recipe
1 cup warm water
1/2 cup sugar (yes, there is a good use for regular yucky white sugar)
2 Tbsp borax
2 drops food coloring (optional)
Borax is a traditional detergent that your grandmother used. You can buy it at big box stores in the laundry section.
Now comes the fun part. I dip a bit of cotton in the ant juice and put it in a bottle cap near where I see ants. When I come back 30 minutes later, the ants have found the juice and are literally lining up to get a swig of poison.
Where before there were ants wandering aimlessly across your bathroom counter, now there are many more ants, all excited and efficient about getting their fair share of the delicious poison.
Find more options: Natural Fire Ant Control
Set It Up and Say Goodbye
After more time passes, the area is completely free of ants. Where do they go? Where do they take the bodies? These are mysteries.
The reason for the food coloring is that it makes it easy for you to see if they have sucked up all of the juice out of the cotton, in which case you need to give them a refill.
I don’t know if fire ants will like this, or if it will have the same clearing effect as it has for my house ants, but I have my bottle of borax ant juice all ready, and that will be the first thing I try next time I see ants in my garden. If it looks like rain, I may put the cotton ball inside a glass jar on it’s side to make sure the rain doesn’t wash it away.
Make up a batch of ant juice. Even if it only works in the house, it is very entertaining.
Thanks to Donna Manley for participating in the [Grow] Network Writing Contest.
We’re still getting the list of prizes lined up for the Spring 2016 Writing Contest. We awarded over $2,097 in prizes for the Fall Writing Contest, including all of the following:
– A 21.5 quart pressure canner from All American, a $382 value
– A Survival Still emergency water purification still, a $288 value
– 1 free 1 year membership in the [Grow] Network Core Community, a $239 value
– A Worm Factory 360 vermicomposting system from Nature’s Footprint, a $128 value
– 2 large heirloom seed collections from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, valued at $103 each
– A Metro-Grower Elite sub-irrigation growing container from Nature’s Footprint, a $69 value
– 2 copies of the complete Home Grown Food Summit, valued at $67 each
– 3 free 3 month memberships in the [Grow] Network Core Community, valued at $59 each
– 4 copies of the Grow Your Own Groceries DVD video set, valued at $43 each
– A Bug Out Seed Kit from the Sustainable Seed Company, a $46 value
– 4 copies of the Alternatives To Dentists DVD video, valued at $33 each
– 4 copies of the Greenhouse of the Future DVD and eBook, valued at $31 each
COMMENTS(7)
Don’t get your hopes up for the small Argentine or sugar ants, does not work. I’ve tried everything short of radiation.
In the garden, plant sunflowers to attract the ants. They eat aphids and take them to the sunflowers. You get a great bee attracting flower, which contains/attracts the ants that eat the aphids that you don’t want. Nature working together!
Will try this !
Interesting. I actually take 1 teaspoon of borax mixed with water 3 times a day. It’s not poison. It comes from the earth and supposedly helps with arthritis pain. (Read the borax conspiracy) The warnings on the label are because of big pharma not wanting it to be used as medicine so they labeled it as poison in Australial years ago. Did you actually see the ants die? I started using a ear of corn to collect all the bugs in my garden. Works pretty good but I’m always up for new ideas. Thanks
Texas fire ants do not seem impressed. Darn. Have never found ants on my sunflowers but they LOVE to farm aphids on my okra. Was hoping this would work.
Thank you so much for this recipe. We had big black ants in our dishwasher. Made this up, set it in the dishwasher and not even a week later the ants where gone.
I just started using food grade diatomaceous earth. I had carpenter ants in a building that were driving me nuts. I sprinkled the DE on the entrance where I saw them coming and going. Everyday I vacuum up the dead dried up ants.