This year, the usual infestation of carpenter ants returns. I bought some ant baits from Walmart. Put them out.
In years gone by, I'd had success with liquid ant bait from Gardens Alive (dot com) but this year they seem to ignore the liquid.
What works for you?
Talstar One.
IME as a PCO in MT, C ants tend to nest in the highest part of a structure. Log/P&B structures seem particularly susceptible, so the first place I looked was the ridge pole.
Just because you don't see ants doesn't mean you don't have ants, which is the weak link in baits. A properly applied chemical barrier ensures if they move about, they're gonna die.
Have you tried praying for relief? If so, your C ants are probably part of God's mysterious plan. -----
- gpsman
Never had Amdro bait fail (yet, anyway)...
On 5/1/2011 10:16 AM, dpb wrote: ...
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Only noticed subject line, until as hit "send" the c-ant word popped into view.
Don't have carpenter ants here so can't say; read labels and/or go to Amdro site for recommendations, if they have something specific.
I'd try it and see; bound to be other ants and similar pests to use it for anyway... :)
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The carpenter ants I see seem to have a home base underground and the ones you see in the house are satellite nests. I couldn't get rid of mine for the longest time and I was finding eggs and dozens of nest tenders everywhere (not really in wood). The strangest spot was a diskette case. Finally one morning my wife saw then swarming from the mulch in front of the house. A white bucket full of a diazanon solution (follow label instructions) took care of that and we never saw another carpenter ant in the house.
I used Terro which is a liquid one that comes in little tray like devices and had good results. You could see they were taking the bait right from day one. Took about a month and a half, but eventually they all disappeared and haven't seen any since.
Carpenter ants usually live in rotting wood (unlike termites, they don't digest it for food). Perhaps yours weren't fully established colonies yet.
I didn't really have any rotting wood for them so they improvised, living in any dark place. They were in the water bed (no leaks) and the coffee maker. I suppose that was near water but not really rotting wood. The diskette case was the real baffling one. We were getting pretty tired of having 100 ants running around carrying eggs every time we picked something up.
A couple rented anteaters from the local zoo.
Borax/sugar.
Have not seem one in the house this year after using it last year.
Greg
They need water to survive. It really doesn't need to be rotting wood, just wet (soon to be rotting ;-).
Woodstock, perhaps?
Yeah, wives are like that. ;-) I had a fairly small issue with carpenter ants just before we sold our first house. They'd made a nest in the structure under the 'fridge. The overflow was leaking a little water down into the flooring below. We caught it well before there was significant structural damage but I had to open up the floor, kill the buggers, and rebuild it all.
We had big problems with the teensie sugar ants when we first moved into this house. The even got into unopened molasses bottles. I nuked the yard with ant killer for two years (spring, fall, then spring) and that seems to have taken care of them. I'll probably do it again in the next week or so.
I had carpenter ants getting in my corner boards. Local exterminator took a look at it and said I should get my house treated for termites and this would also take care of the ants. Since several homes in my neighborhood had recently be damaged by termites this seem like a good idea. 12 years later no termites and no ants. House was treated with Termador.
Jimmie
Not going to read all the replies, so if this has been posted I apologize. Terro seems to work well around here. I assume the wife buys it at the grocery.
Colbyt
Nope, it was a plastic box with the dividers for the old 5.25" diskettes and CDs.
W had the little ants that get into everything and I injected poison into the walls where all the pipes come up from the slab and baited them. I am not sure what got them but they are gone. They were actually the last sweet ants we ever saw. We had the white foot black ants that were very selective protein eaters and as they changed I changed, making a bait from whatever they started eating. The last bait I used was based on dog food the dog had chewed and dropped on the floor, the only thing they were eating at the time. After that they couldn't find anything to eat so they left.
This "one" buys it at the local farmers' co-op. Who is stocking retailer in your neck 'o the woods I've no clewes...
Sorry, I don't have an "ant" key.
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