Get Rid of Carpenter Ants
Get Rid of Carpenter Ants
Carpenter ants are more than a nuisance, they are destructive pests. They burrow into wood to build their nesting areas inside, and once they have established themselves, it is difficult to get rid of them. Carpenter ants vary in appearance and color and are normally large. They appear in swarms during the spring season, an indication that somewhere nearby they have established a colony and sub-colonies.
Their nesting areas are usually found in decaying tree trunks or roots, decaying wood and other spaces that have access to water. Like all living things, ants also need water to survive. When carpenter ants invade homes, they nest on walls and near areas where there is moisture. A home should be rid immediately of carpenter ants before they can cause more damage.
Methods of Ridding Ants
An effective way to get rid of ants is to find the nesting colony where the queen ant lays 800 to more than a thousand eggs in one day. Queen ants lay eggs prodigiously in a day because they have stored a lifetime of sperm in her reproductive tract. Unless the queen ants are destroyed, there will be no end to the number of ants invading the home and garden.
Boric Acid
Spraying ants is not an effective way of killing them off. A better way to destroy carpenter ants is to bait them with boric acid powder with sugar. It is the sugar, not the boric acid that attracts ants. When the ants take the boric-powder-sugar solution back to their nests, an entire colony will feed on it; but they don’t die immediately. It will take some time before a number of dead ants are observed.
Combining boric acid with honey and peanut butter are effective homemade remedies to get rid of carpenter ants though there are ready products available in drugstores and farm supply outlets. Boric acid is derived from water and boron. It is tasteless and odorless and white in color. This substance is toxic to ants and cockroaches and although is low in toxicity, this should be kept away from children.
Pyrethrum
Pyrethrum is a natural pesticide derived from the Chrysanthemum family. If this is mixed with the home rubbing alcohol, it can kill ants upon contact. When using this, use protective gloves because pyrethrum can irritate the skin, eyes, and the respiratory system.
Corn Meal
Corn meal is hard to digest even for humans. When ants feed on corn meal and drink water, the water swells the corn meal causing their digestive system to burst. Baiting them with corn meal should be consistently done until there are no more traces of carpenter ants.
Cinnamon
Ants hate the smell of cinnamon; place cinnamon powder along crevices and on the regular ant trails. The scent drives them to relocate.
If the situation cannot be controlled, a pest control expert is recommended. To get rid of the ants, the nesting area will located and holes will be drilled to entice the ants out to chemically treated areas. Once the ants get out, all infested areas will be sprayed with a residual insecticide solution.
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