Summer brings warm weather, plant growth and fun times…but not so much, when the sugar ants begin to march into your kitchen from some unknown entry point.
Have you ever awakened after a good night’s sleep, walked into your kitchen and were shocked to find a long trail of these little critters marching to and fro across your kitchen countertops?
Well, what to do?
Of course, you can run and grab some toxic ant spray or chemical treatment to zap the suckers immediately. Or, you can call a professional exterminator to do the job. In so doing, you may cause some harm to your health and nasty up your healthy home.
Why not just get rid of sugar ants naturally?
As you know, there are different types of ants and each has it’s own food preferences, instincts and particular ways to eradicate each type. So make sure you use the right method to get rid of sugar ants in particular.
2 Natural Homemade Bait Options to Get Rid of Sugar Ants
As the name suggests, sugar ants are attracted to sweets. That’s a no brainer. Just drop one, tiny crumb from a cookie and if there’s a sugar ant from a mile around, bingo, it’s on it…followed
by a brigade of a thousand more.
The best methods to eradicate them is to attract them with their supreme weakness…sweets.
You can make your own homemade bait for sugar ants that really does work. It’s cheap and you can be assured that it’s nontoxic.
1. Homemade Ant Bait – General Purpose
What you need:
1 part Borax
3 parts powdered sugar
several plastic bottle caps
Do this:
Mix Borax and powdered sugar until stiff and creamy. Divide mixture into as many bottle caps as you need. Place them near any suspected entry points. If you have already seen a trail of ants anywhere in your home, place loaded bottle caps directly in the sugar ant’s path. Make it as easy as possible for them to find your ticking time bomb!
2. Homemade Ant Bait – Children & Pet Safe
If you have pets or kids around that you’re worried might get into the loaded bottle caps, use this alternative bait that is just as effective, but easier to keep out of reach.
What you need:
1 cup warm water
3 tablespoons Borax
1/2 cup sugar
cotton balls
Do this:
Mix well. Soak several cotton balls as needed and place in shallow dishes. You can also cut out square pieces of plastic from milk jugs and use these as low profile holders. Ants can more easily access the cotton balls. Place these baits near ant trails or in places you suspect they may be entering.
Additional Tips for Getting Rid of Ants Naturally
Be sure to allow the ants to parade through your home and line up at your bait traps to feed. Don’t bother killing them, because they will carry the sugar and Borax back to their nest. The sugar masks
the Borax particles which will kill off the entire colony. The more ants that carry your bait back home, the quicker they will be destroyed.
To further discourage sugar ants in your home, use vinegar to spray on countertops, bathroom areas, baseboards, small cracks and around door jams if you suspect they are sneaking in there. You can let the vinegar dry on these surfaces or gently wipe with a cloth. Vinegar destroys ant’s chemical pheromone trails which they leave wherever they travel. This will deter any stragglers from finding the trails and following their ant buddies into your home.
In the meantime, you can also work on finding and sealing up any open entry points in and around your home that they could possibly find.
You can get rid of sugar ants periodically with these two natural pest control methods. As you know, ants are particularly tenacious and a new nest will pop up somewhere within a few weeks, so you may need to repeat this treatment periodically over the summer. However, you can be assured that you’re not only getting rid of sugar ants effectively, but you’re also using safe, natural methods to create a healthy home for your family.
Check out our BOOK, Building and Remodeling a HEALTHY HOME to learn how to create a healthy living space for your family.
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