With the ant season upon us again, my wife has been trying to locate Nippon Gel, but nobody seems to stock it any more.
Has it perhaps been withdrawn for PC (politically crass) elf n' safety reasons?
Suggestions anyone for an alternative? (preferably a gel rather than a powder, as powder tends to blow away).
Put the powder in little containers with holes in the sides.
I tried to get Nippon last year but had no success Ian. I eventually went to Focus and bought something called "Ant Stop" which has two bait stations - small circular plastic things where the ants crawl into. Whether used inside or out, it doesn't leave any powder - just dead ants.
It worked for me, although when I found where they were coming from outside, a few kettles of boiling water finished them off.
Splodge
I bought some last summer from a "proper" hardware store in Paddock Wood, Kent. They also sell caustic soda and spirits of salts. None looked like old stock so they seem to be able to get all the interesting traditional things without any trouble...
Cheers
Tim
Cross posting left in place.
ian formulated on Wednesday :
Is this any good Ian?,
I had trouble finding it a few months ago. Got it in Homebase (yuk) in the end.
I managed to buy some last week in Lincolnshire but in a traditional hardware shop. They also had something called ant bait which was a square of plastic impregnated with something similar to Nippon but at twice the price.
If possible locate the nest, and destroy that :-)
I don't know about Nippon Gel, I always use Nippon Liquid:
I have found Nippon to be absolutely useless. Get ordinary ant powder, at least that works. Regards Mike.
Nippon gel is 5% borax in a sugar solution. It doesn't take long to DIY.
Other of course than the fact that asking for borax in a chemists (or any chemical) now gets you treated like a terrorist. I had a heck of a job trying to get hold of a bottle of peroxide recently.
Asking for citric acid gets you treated like a drug dealer....
Oh the joys of living life in knee-jerk response to the tabloid press.
The nest is likely to be somewhere in your garden.
Locate it, pour some white spirit on it and give it a good roasting with a blow-torch.
I singed our lawn doing that last year and got some odd looks from the neighbours, but it got rid of the little buggers.
I like ants, bees and wasps. What harm do they do. Even on the very rare occasions that ants raid your house they do little harm and usually disappear again overnight. Just because they are a macro organism which functions in quantity, they elicit horror and repugnance. Shame I call it. I put a bit of sugarwater down in my garden and it keeps em all very happy and in one spot. Save poisons for real health hazards like rats, mice and Islaamic terrorists. :-))
Well said, a sensible post at last. .
Steve Firth explained :
Your hair looks nice though Steve ;-)
Thanks mate. Reading the above is kinda disconcerting - like a bunch of terrorists organising their shopping list. Bet they're the type that pour boiling water over the neighbours' cats cos they've strayed into their gardens and disturbed the perfectly tilled rows of seedlings that are of such temporay value. Nature's little creatures were here long before us - why destroy an entitre colony when they do very litle harm and move on anyway when they're ready? These same upstanding citizens will all be ranting about carbon emissions and speeding again shortly. Hypocrits all! :-((
I wondered where Mary was....!
"BunnyHare" wrote in news:f19h4g$esg$ snipped-for-privacy@news.datemas.de:
1) Nippon Gel is still available (as other have said, try a 'real' hardware store).
2) Nippon Gel didn't work too well for me - a couple of years ago we had a very bad infestation of ants in the cavity wall (so we couldn't poour boiling water on them). Tried Nippon gel (no luck), the plastic 'ant baits' (no luck) and ant powder (lots of dead ants, but new ones kept appearing).Then I found Vapona ant bait - a metal tin about the size of a shoe- polish tin - it's meant to work similarly to the Nippon in that the ants carry it back to their nest and kill the nest 'from the inside out'. It worked a treat - within two days, no more ants at all.
We have just had our first ants of this summer (and the first for a good few years) and I went straight to the hardware shop and got the Vapona. A few hours later you could see the ants marching in and out of the tin (they seem to love it) and within two days, no more ants at all.
There is a picture here, although I have no knowledge of the retailer. It may be a little more expensive than other suggestions, but for me it has been the best value.
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