'Bugs News

ants feeding on sugary bait Sooner or later almost everyone experiences ant problems in their home or apartment. Ants often invade kitchens first but can spread to other areas of the home as well. They are several different species of tiny black/brown ants that enter homes in search of food and water. Ant colonies can be located in the soil around and beneath the structure but they can also be in the walls and/or ceiling . Ant Colonies and Ant Control All ants live in complex, highly organized colonies where workers gather food and water for the developing young and the egg-laying queen. The trick with any successful ant control program is to use the worker ants to collect food for the colony that has been combined with an insecticide. The bait is fed to developing young and the queen thus disrupting the entire colony. Spray insecticides, on the other hand, do not work well against household nuisance ants because ants can detect and avoid areas that have been treated . ...

As warm weather arrives in the spring higher temperatures may activate ant nests both inside and outside your home. You will see increased ant activity as nests resume nest-building and the production of young worker ants. All this activity requires food so ants will be out foraging for new food sources. Control of the common household nuisance ants (not carpenter ants) is best done with baits (sometimes called "ant traps"), rather than insecticide sprays. Sprays only kill the ants that the spray contacts, not the nest. Baits will destroy the whole nest. And the simplest and least expensive is a drop of sugary liquid food that has been combined with boric acid (sometimes called borate). During spring ants are most attracted to sugary foods (carbohydrate) because of the high energy demand of nest building. If a scout worker finds a bit of sugary food she (all worker ants are female) will recruit her nestmates to the food source (see photo). Borate, a salt of boric acid, ...