Treat Carpenter Ants With Boric Acid
Boric Acid a Favorite Weapon Against Ants
Using Boric Acid mixed with sugar or sugar water is a natural way to rid your home of carpenter ants.
How it works:
Ants like sweet tastes, so the sugar attracts and the Boric Acid kills them. A Boric Acid and sugar mixture can decimate an ant colony. It may take a while, because ants feed by a process called tropholaxis, in which one ant eats food, and then brings it back for other ants to share.
If ants eat a poison that’s too strong, they’ll die before they can share it with other ants in the colony. The goal is for the poison to kill the queen ant in order to completely eradicate a colony
A mixture of Boric Acid and sugar water:
2. I also place small caps of the same mixture with 1/2 cup of water mixed in and place the caps in problem areas. Put little drops or dribbled lines of the mixture wherever you’ve seen the ants. You need to make sure they’ll find it as it takes a few days to work. Too many visible dead ants means you made the mixture too strong.
NOTE on Boric Acid:
Boric acid is a white, inorganic powder chemically derived from water and Boron, which is mined from vast mineral deposits in the ground and used in consumer products such as laundry additives, toothpaste and mouthwash.
Deadly to cockroaches, Boric Acid is low in toxicity to people and pets, and is even used as an eyewash albeit in a 1% water solution.
It is also odorless and contains no volatile solvents. Boric Acid has been a favorite weapon against ants and roaches for more than a century, and is one of the most effective cockroach control agents ever developed, provided that it is used correctly.
CAUTION: It should be kept away from children and pets.
~ concord carpenter
