One Crazy Idea To Get Rid Of Sugar Ants

Okay, so you have sugar ants invading your kitchen.  They come in endless streams like rush hour traffic in Seattle and you need to know how to stop them.  Maybe you have tried a little bit of everything and nothing has worked.  In fact, many of the things that you have tried have made the problem much worse!  The truth is, these pests are hard to get rid of (even for pest control professionals), so you have your work cut out for you.  However, I have found one solution that just might help, but it is going to sound a little crazy.

First, let me just make sure that you are not doing something that will make the problem worse.  DO NOT use Raid, Black Flag or any other ant spray inside your home.  Sugar ants have a very negative reaction when you use any store bought sprays.  This is because anything that you can get over the counter is just a repellent based pesticide and repellents do not work on sugar ants.  What they can do is cause panic in the nest and trigger what is called "budding" within the colony.  Basically, this means that the colony will split and move to different areas and will then proceed to reproduce at a faster rate to replenish.  A better choice would be to use store bought bait products like "Terro" which will not have a harmful effect, but also is not the most effective. 

So, what is the crazy idea?

Give the sugar ants some sugar!

I know that it sounds crazy, but where are the sugar ants at right now?  Everywhere!  And, if you were to take a lid or small dish and put some sugary substance like jam or honey in it, where would the sugar ants be?  They would be going for that sugary substance!  Let's say you put that lid full of jam in an area less obtrusive and let the sugar ants crawl all over the stuff, wouldn't that be better than having them all over your counter?

 

Won't that make them reproduce faster?

Yes, it will make them reproduce faster with a good food source, so this is only a temporary solution.  The idea is to gather them in one place.  Within hours, you will see a flood of ants all going for the sugary substance and you will start to see trails form.  These trails can lead you to where their nest is at.

Okay, so how do I kill them now?

Now that you have their nest figured out and have redirected them to a feeding trough, you can do a couple of things.  If you want to be sure to get them wiped out, you can call me or you can now start using a store bought bait.  I realize that I just told you that the store bought baits don't work very well and they don't, but now you have their full attention.  The store bought baits just don't have the draw that gets the ants to take it back to the nests, but with this method, it might actually work.  Here is a product that you can buy from Amazon.com that seems to work pretty well.

If you try this and it still is not working, call me and I will help you figure out a solution.  In the meantime, best of luck in getting these things wiped out!

Photo credit: Jollyboy / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND