Ants finally got "Terro"-ized

[Robert Green]

My huge mulberry tree did not fruit this year. As a result about a billon hungry little black sugar ants that used to feed on the fallen berries came into my house searching for food. These little black ants with banded abdomens that smell like citronella when crushed are cunning. They travel long distances upside down and sideways, making it almost impossible to track their entry points. I tried a lot of commercial stuff without success.

Then, reading through old posts I saw that Norminn and some others recommended Terro. I was out looking for a replacement toilet seat that mysteriously cracked last night. At least two things a day break down around here. Anyway, I got a pack of 9 traps from TruValue (about $5) and set three out where I had been seeing the occasional ant.

Four hours later two of the traps were filled with ants and a huge parade was leading to each trap. I could see them, lined up like little cows at a cattle trough, sucking the clear poison until their abdomens were swollen. When one left the "feed line" another moved right in to take it's place.

It was "Ant Crack." They walked through the Combat traps and ignored the Raid bait. But they couldn't get enough Terro. They were climbing all over themselves to get at it. This morning, only a few stragglers remain. Hopefully, this will put an end to them.

Good tip, Norminn (and many others, going back to 2000).

FWIW, in today's NYT there's an article about a woman who poisoned herself to death trying to rid her house of bedbugs:

Well, there's no accounting for stone cold crazy. Don't we have posters here from Rocky Mount?

-- Bobby G.

[George]

Best bait I ever used was from an exterminator. I happened to be going into a commercial building where I was working and the exterminator was doing the monthly followup. I mentioned we were getting invaded by ants at home who were not even interested in the bait I used.

Guy gave me a sealed bag with 6 plastic bait "trays". There was a divider inside with a different appearance glob of material on each side.

I put two out. The next morning there were enough ants by each to carry the bait away. Two days later the ants were gone. I looked at the bait and the "type A" bait in one side was completely gone and the "type B" bait in the other side was untouched.

[gfretwell]

>

That is the secret. You have to bait them with what they are eating. Terro is sugar based and if you have sweet eating ants it works great. If they stop eating sugar you have to get creative. Use what you seeing them eat and bait with that. The poison is usually boric acid in all of the baits you see, mixed about 12 to 16 to one with the bait food.

[Robert Green]

I got a bottle of chlordane from an exterminator 20 years ago. I would dilute it, trickle it around the perimeter of the house and did not see a termite until the year after it ran out. Now, of course, the EPA has banned it because builders would flood the ground with 500 gallons of it at a time. One gallon protected my house for 15 years. So you can see that those 500 gallon dumps were overkill and ended up in the aquifers. Now I use stakes - far more expensive and far more work than a walk around the house with a milk jug with a small hole punched in the bottom. God I hate being forced to pay for the actions of a few morons.

I believe it. When I had a steady stream of them I placed Combat traps right in their path. The walked in and out without slowing down. The Terro stuff, on the other hand, seemed to draw every ant from the tri-state area (hyperbole alert - I recall reading that ants and termites make up most of the planet's animal biomass. Every ant from the tri-state area could easily be tons of ants. Any "antomologists" out there?

-- Bobby G.

[Robert Green]

>>

Yep, that's what's in Terro. Boric acid. Not a single ant today, but two traps full of ants drowned in corn syrup. I should post a picture of them feeding. Lined up just like cattle.

-- Bobby G.

[George]

Or homeowners, someone I knew was building a house and got a 55 gal drum from somewhere and used the entire drum for their house. I read the instructions and it was probably sufficient to treat 200 similar sized properties.

[Norminn]

clipped

Glad it worked. I haven't had huge ant problems, and they seem to be only seasonal when they show up; true in Fla. and "up north". Part of the problem, always, has been leaving food available in the kitchen; gotta clean up when seeking the "cure". Occas. the only problem has been a coffee cake or stick of butter left on the counter - in Fla., the buggers have no trouble finding sweets.

Terro instructions used to be, for grease ants, mix a tad of terro with fatty food - nice, rich bread or cake seems to be the right recipe.

We had our Florida condo treated for roaches (seemed to move in when upstairs neighbor left)...$500 worth of peanut butter and boric acid, applied with cake decorating-type syringe. Worked beautifully :o)

When serving guests, I ALWAYS serve what I expect they like to eat :o)

Faced with bedbug infestation, I'd be tempted to try the same :o)

For the first time in my life, I read the instructions on a tube of toothpaste. Crest something-or-other with fluoride...says, if ya' swallow "more than is used for brushing", to get medical help immed. or call poison control center. Gulp!

[gpsman]

3 quarts of Talstar One should last a typical homeowner a lifetime.

As a former PCO I use it and Tempo 20 WP to control insects around this house, and pool, and acre of deck/s, situated practically in the woods.

Both are unrestricted pesticides available to homeowners. -----

- gpsman

[Robert Green]

3 quarts of Talstar One should last a typical homeowner a lifetime.

As a former PCO I use it and Tempo 20 WP to control insects around this house, and pool, and acre of deck/s, situated practically in the woods.

Both are unrestricted pesticides available to homeowners. =============================================

Thanks. Stuff isn't cheap but I'd better score some before it, too, is banned.

-- Bobby G.

- gpsman

[gfretwell]

That stuff is concentrated enough that you could share the purchase with a few neighbors.

[Robert Green]

Yep, those are the buttheads who killed chlordane for everybody else. At least 55 gallons is about 1/10 of what the homebuilders cited in the ban used.

-- Bobby G.

[Robert Green]

I keep telling the dog to be more damn careful but she never listens. Dog food has lots of sugar in it, it turns out. These ants were never a problem as long as they were fed from the thousands of fallen mulberries. But like welfare queens whose checks have stopped, they started coming to me looking for what I have. (-: Just a little fable.

It's an ant ghost town now. I wanted to make sure the colony died before the went underground for the winter. FWIW, these guys constantly made a beeline (or an antline I suppose) into the garbage can in the kitchen. It has a closing flap but that didn't even slow them down. I pulled the can out to empty it, broke the ant train back to the nest and had about 20 climb aboard me looking for a way back home.

So far, so good with what looks like corn syrup (label doesn't give inactive ingredients).

Someone might come upon you with syringes of peanut butter and get a very wrong idea.

>

For a while we thought we had them as my wife travels a bit. It was just mosquitoes because only exposed skin had bites. With bedbugs, it's just the opposite.

Yes, when I thought about Raid and Combat, I realized that a huge pesticide company probably has to make a bait so safe, babies could eat it. In fact my dumb dog did eat one, earning her a trip to the vet who said "don't worry - not at all poisonous to dogs except in great quantity."

-- Bobby G.