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Can not find Ant Bait, ideas or information?


Referdude

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I have checked10 retail outlets and can not find an ant bait.  I have used Cynoff, Raid, and Trompa.  No results longer than 3 days.  I even ground

up trompa and mixed it with yummi bases.  They wouldn't touch the Trompa.

If possible, please the name, and location to obtain.  Thanks.

 

I will add some search terms so other folks can find this information.  Cynoff, Raid, Trompa, Terro, Ant Bait, Ant poison, kill ants

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https://www.mashupmom.com/yes-borax-got-rid-of-the-ants/

borax-2.jpg

Do you get these every spring too? I get a bunch of little ants coming into my kitchen under one of the cabinets that backs up against an outside wall. I read online about people sprinkling a line of Borax and sugar along where the ants are coming in, but didn’t want to leave that out because of our cats. 

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I use Hormigal which is available at any hardware store in the area and at the garden shops. With this, one has to find their nest (hole in the ground usually) and spread Hormigal carefully around the place and it destroys the nest completely. This chemical requires care as it can be harmful to pets - especially cats if they are able to walk through it.

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Hormigal and Permetrina work well for outdoor problems. Hormigal is pretty nasty. Patron and Trompa are designed to work on leaf cutter ants. 

Indoor small ants are a bigger problem. The lady at the Garden Center in Riberas between 7-11 and Electro Venta can probably help.

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Friends in Texas, where they had lots of ants, had come up with a unique and rather gruesome solution which they said worked fantastically (non-toxic to boot). They would gather up a bunch of ants, throw them in the blender with a little water, then pour the decimated ant juice around. The ants all left.

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The OP wasn't clear whether he was talking outdoor or indoor ants.  

This year was our worst invasion of indoor "sugar" ants....the teeniest tiniest ones I have ever seen.  But in multitudes if something sweet was left on the counter for a nano-second.  

I made a boric acid mixture late morning yesterday and put it out (recipe and technique below); about an hour after putting the wet paper towel on the counter, there were about a hundred of the little !!@@$^**& ants on it.  Checked a few hours later and the towel was empty of ants.  

Early this morning we saw ONE.  ONE.  I put out another wet towel after we saw it and since then, zippo.  Not convinced they are gone for good, but it's kinda a fun experiment....like that Ant Farm none of our parents would buy us when we were kids 😉

 
Quote

 

Place into 1-cup liquid measuring cup: 
1/2 teaspoon boric acid powder 
1 1/2 Tablespoons white table sugar
Fill to 2/3 cup line with warm water
Stir to dissolve completely.
Dip half a paper towel folded a few times into roughly a 3 inch square lightly in the liquid and set on counter (that's where I was seeing them).  Put excess liquid in fridge to re-use.  The paper towel will dry out over night.  Discard and repeat with new towel and saved liquid.  

 

 
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  • 3 months later...

Good stuff! My tiny ants seemed to come from light switches at first. Now it seems they are even smaller & seem to just magically appear. I squirt them with dish soap & water (citric type is best) kills them instantly. Faster than any bug spray. But now I can’t ever find out how they get from a to b. I left peanut butter & sliced apples on my coffee table for a couple hours. They love apple & the 1 remaining slice was covered, but don’t touch PB. But no trace how they got there. No trail, none coming up the table leg, on the floor. Just on the apple. After squirting the apple with dish soap, I put the plate in the sink & covered with water, but an edge or two remained above water, but still surrounded and those critters managed to get to those little islands above the surface. How?  They seem smaller than the ones from light switches, that I no longer have. I’ve fumigated. Any insight on these tiny critters & how to find the source? They don’t appear to haul food off. 

 

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32 minutes ago, bobboyeson said:

Good stuff! My tiny ants seemed to come from light switches at first. Now it seems they are even smaller & seem to just magically appear. I squirt them with dish soap & water (citric type is best) kills them instantly. Faster than any bug spray. But now I can’t ever find out how they get from a to b. I left peanut butter & sliced apples on my coffee table for a couple hours. They love apple & the 1 remaining slice was covered, but don’t touch PB. But no trace how they got there. No trail, none coming up the table leg, on the floor. Just on the apple. After squirting the apple with dish soap, I put the plate in the sink & covered with water, but an edge or two remained above water, but still surrounded and those critters managed to get to those little islands above the surface. How?  They seem smaller than the ones from light switches, that I no longer have. I’ve fumigated. Any insight on these tiny critters & how to find the source? They don’t appear to haul food off. 

 

My experience is they come in search not of food, but of water. Because they don't bother my food I don't stress over them. If I see them I just wipe them up with a damp cloth, rinse, and go on with my day. They're harmless.

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I also noticed they aren’t attracted to most food. I left an apple slice & peanut butter on my coffee table last night for a cpl hrs. Believe me, they love apple & I previously not seen that many at one time, didn’t touch the PB. But funny u mentioned water, after spraying the apple with dish soap & water (instant death) I put submerged the plate in the kitchen sink. This am, the tiny little critters were on the a couple dish edges above the water line. I don’t think they swim & showed no desire to get back in the water to escape. Baffling that I can’t determine how they arrived on those little islands. Same on my coffee table, they just appear, no trail coming or going. First year I ever had any ants. Fumigated but no apparent effect. To your point, bait doesn’t work. Baffled. 

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Dear Baffled. A couple more facets to your knowledge. Ants have been observed in nature making bridges of live ants. The sugar ants, more properly Pharoah ants, diet can change from sweet to fatty tastes. The ground up live ants probably caused a massive dose of formic acid. It is their flight or fight trigger, but also is used in low doses for marking food trails. Again, in nature, scientists have observed a " circle of death" behavior, if the ants get trapped in a circular trail, they will follow it until they die. I used to admire the sugar ants, such hard workers, but outside in the garden, they can weaken your plants, leading to further problem such as aphids, whitefly, and others.

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Can you be more specific Inside or outside. Leaf cutter or not.

The agricultural stores on the highway out of Jocotepec towards Morelia (Vincente Gurrrero Pte) probably have the best selection of ant killer chemicals. Best to take a few of the ants (dead) along to show them..  

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3 hours ago, bobboyeson said:

I also noticed they aren’t attracted to most food. I left an apple slice & peanut butter on my coffee table last night for a cpl hrs. Believe me, they love apple & I previously not seen that many at one time, didn’t touch the PB. But funny u mentioned water, after spraying the apple with dish soap & water (instant death) I put submerged the plate in the kitchen sink. This am, the tiny little critters were on the a couple dish edges above the water line. I don’t think they swim & showed no desire to get back in the water to escape. Baffling that I can’t determine how they arrived on those little islands. Same on my coffee table, they just appear, no trail coming or going. First year I ever had any ants. Fumigated but no apparent effect. To your point, bait doesn’t work. Baffled. 

Trust me there is a well-defined trail.  I used that mixture I posted above and it was amazing to watch.  

I saw some of these little bitty ants on a kitchen counter, adjacent to my dining room.  I put out the paper towel pieces soaked in the bait liquid after breakfast.  My adjacent dining room wall is 18 feet tall and ends in a skylight.  These ants went from the kitchen counter, around the kitchen wall to the dining room wall, straight up 15+ feet to just below the skylight (this is an area that has never leaked in the worst of summer downpours).  There must have been a small hole in the vertical wall seam of the skylight below the flat part of skylight.    

We watched them all day as they came and went in both directions; they are taking the poison back to their nest.  By late afternoon the ants were gone....and have yet to reappear, and it's been several months. 

On my opposite kitchen counter that is on an exterior wall, they seem to march between the counter and down the cut-out for our stove, so I can't really see them.  But I use the same technique.  Probably due to proximity of stove/food/crumbs they reappear maybe every 60+ days and I re-treat when I see some.  I make the mixture and keep in a plastic container in fridge (well-marked!!) and it seems to hold its strength.  

I repeat the formula below.  FYI, do not be tempted to make it stronger...if it is too strong they will not take the bait.  

Place into 1-cup liquid measuring cup: 
1/2 teaspoon boric acid powder 
1 1/2 Tablespoons white table sugar
Fill to 2/3 cup line with warm water
Stir to dissolve completely.
Dip half a paper towel folded a few times into roughly a 3 inch square lightly in the liquid and set on counter (that's where I was seeing them).  Put excess liquid in fridge to re-use.  The paper towel will dry out over night.  Discard and repeat with new towel and saved liquid until you see no ants.  Usually just one single day (put out in morning and they're gone by late afternoon).  Liquid can be kept refrigerated for future use for at least a few months.  
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