Ants invade house again, this is war!

I found that simply vacuuming up the tiny ants reduce their numbers enough that they dissapper. We don't get many invasions of the small ones, one or two times a year.

later,

tom @

:On Thu, 09 Nov 2006 18:09:30 -0600, clifto wrote: : :>Dan_Musicant wrote: :>> Several times a year I undergo an ant invasion in my kitchen, :>> principally. They always seem the same - very small black ants, at the :>> most 1/10 inch long. This time, it's different. They are much larger, :>> probably 2-3 times the mass of the usual ants and around 1/8 inch long, :>> black. :>

:>We get ants every year. I put down the packaged ant "traps", little boxes :>with poison in them. It's not long before you can see the trail they're :>taking. A few days and they disappear. : : :I found that simply vacuuming up the tiny ants reduce their numbers :enough that they dissapper. We don't get many invasions of the small :ones, one or two times a year. : :later, : :tom @

Yes, this time I even did some vacuuming of ants, really just because I had the vacuum out. Normally, I use sponges and I have a pile of 15-20 of them at hand and ready!

The ants have dwindled and dwindled and seem uninterested in the bait now. I see at most 1/2 dozen at a time, usually 2-3, but always there's at least one. They are sticking to the trails they were on when they were hitting the bait heavily. I sponged their trails, but they seem to know where they were, which puzzles me. I wonder if these are not stragglers who got lost in my kitchen and haven't made it home yet. I figure the nest may have been decimated now by the rather large ingestion of boric acid bait. I figure the queen is dead.

What I'm wondering is if these ants have a plan B. IOW, if they don't have a princess or two in pupa stage waiting to take over the colony should the queen die for some reason.

Dan

Wipe the trails with a little Windex.

Windex makes for a poor insecticide (yet another ant myth) but it's very effective at removing/covering the scent of the trails.