little ants all over the kitchen. eating on the ripe bannana's, etc.

just read a few day ago to mix sugar and borate in a pan with water and bring to a bial, and put out in coffee pans, plastic tops, etc.

they act like they're afraid of this concoction. seriously.

how does one get rid of an infestation of ants? anyone know for sure?

I use a commercial product called Terro which is liquid mix of borax and sugar. Put a few drops along their path and they will ring it like cows at a trough.
It doesn't kill them immediately. They take it back to the nest and spread it around. After a few days, no more ants.

For an immediate kill without poison, any soapy liquid will kill most insects on contact. Sometimes I just hose 'em down with Windex.

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Hang in there, Sybil.

Wipe counter-tops with lemon juice - eats their little legs off. I recently spayed a bunch of pi$$ants with Windex - DRT

back in the day, afore PC took over the landscape, i first dealt with Lindane, a derivative of BHC. (ever heard of Agent Orange), then shifted to Chlordane, and then to Dursban. but nowadays, i've got two bricks that i attempt to lure them into. and along with any termites that are running loose and uncontrolled.

it's good to know that pesticide industry is on our side as consumers, and not just there to make money, money, money. lol.

+ 1 on the Terro,
I"ve had good luck with it.

Clean your kitchen, problem solved.

that solution sounds oh so simple. but i don't think it's all that effective. i'll keep searching if you don't mind.

Not hardly. They will keep looking till they find something. In the summer time they need water and there is always some around the sink.

How do you keep them out when they come up through the slab under the kitchen cabinets or through the seams in the hardwood floor?

Spectracide kills the pissants but not the big ants.

Here's what you do works 100% of the time. Get yourself a bottle of Terro and a cupcake or piece of cake something nice and sweet and spongy. Squeeze the whole damn bottle on the piece of cake and let them go to work. Within an hour or so they will have a descontruction project going on that cake the likes u have never seen. Let them carry as much off as they can. In a few days you won't see another ant for a long damn time. i do it once a summer at our house and they are gone for the rest of the summer.

I have had 100% luck with this product. Home Depot or Lowes has bait stations of it. Get some Gus and put out around water sources. Under sink in kitchens, bathrooms. Takes about 3 weeks to kill them all and get back to the queens. Hell I had them living in the attic coming out the light fixtures even. Stuff works Gus.

And keep all open boxes of food in the fridge until no more Piss ants are around.

You may have made the brew with too much Borax so it's too strong, or once it dries out it stops working.

Ants are smart. If the workers die right away the ants will see it as a threat rather than a food source. Killing the workers is irrelevant; there are millions of them but the bait has to get back to the Queen, (or Queens), to eliminate the problem.

Terro is a Borax based bait and the Borax is only around 6%, and the rest is the other ingredients that make the bait attractive. That's close to a 20/1 mix sugar/borax.

Right now I'm dealing with Fire Ants on my property and it's taking a while to eliminate them but you have to get them to eat the bait or it won't get back to the Queen.

Remix your bait, try pancake syrup or maybe just buy some Terro.

These Fire Ants are amazing and the most aggressive ants I have ever seen in NA. I kind of like their attitude but they gotta go... their tiny little stings take a couple of months to heal and can leave 1/4" scars.

They go through phases - water, grease/protein, sugar. Sounds like yours are in one of the first 2.

Terro works OK when they're harvesting sugar. This stuff works always:

Talstar P

Interesting.

Put cotton balls or Q-tips in Borax mixture. Place around where ants are. They may like the dry mix better

I use Raid Max Bug Barrier on the floor of the room where I process honey. Keeping ants away from an attraction like spilled honey is pretty impressive. It also possesses the virtue of not having a detectable (to me) odor.

I am trying to start a war with outside ants. I have them everywhere and every size. small blacks, big blacks, medium reds and they are a damn nuisance. Before a rain they will carry eggs up on the lawnmower, and ATV and put them in my tool box. Ants everywhere in everything. I am trying multiple killers but have just started this feud, so don't know what will work yet. miles

Talstar P. I found it as a result of my war on stinkbugs and ticks up on the mountain. 25 ounces mixed with 50 gallons of water in the boom sprayer, applied to and around the outside of the house in May has wiped them out. Haven't seen a single tick, stinkbug, wasp, ant, beetle, or any other critter in the house all summer. I'm hitting it again next weekend.

Termidor

Piss on 'em!!

i'd like to!

preciate the good advice. what i'm doing now ain't working.

i'll try some of the solutions, maybe in combination. can't hurt.

Buy a bag of tick granules for 15 bucks and put them out around the base of your house. No new ants coming across.
I used to have a quarterly deal with terminix for inside pests for 80 a quarter. They never got rid of my ants completely. Half a bag of tick granules twice a year. No more ants and no more terminix. I have not seen 1 ant in my house since I started putting out the granules.

This.

I'm trying a mix of peanut butter and borax on our ants since they seem to look for protein and fat. I also mixed in a little oil drained off from breakfast sausage. Will see how it works, but the ants are all over it right now. I cut a bunch of cardboard squares and dabbed them with the mix to place along their travel routes and at their mounds.

I've done the peanut butter thing before and it worked pretty good.

Bon appétit SOB's!!!