carpenter ants

DutmanSport: Your idea sounds great. I like to carry things in my RV "just in case". You mentioned that is only comes in large bags, which I can't carry around with me. If you purchase a small bag of deer food that has that in it, could you spread the feed and it would have the same affect? Or, how can you get it in smaller quantities for later use if needed. I had small ants, not sure what kind and mixed the borax and sugar which did the same thing, but the borax is poisonous if animals get it. Good thing my problem was in my medicine cabinet.

When this subject comes up, I like to share from my experience, but to the best of my knowledge, not too many follow my example. I don't know why, maybe because this is a bit unconventional. Bug killer seems to be believable, this does not. But this works.

We had inside household birds (several of them) and ants at the same time. We had to be careful what we used to kill the ants, and mostly we found nothing, because virtually everything could have killed the birds, especially spray arrisols. We also took the magazine "Bird Talk." In Bird Talk magazine once, there was a little snippet article, almost no noticeable, about how to get rid of ants. We followed the suggestion and we've never had any kind of ant problem again.

The magazine suggested using dried molasses, you know, the feed supplement used for feeding cattle and deer. It has to be the dried stuff, that comes in a bag, NOT the wet stuff you get from a bottle.

Dried molasses is safe to eat by humans (I've tried it myself), pets, and especially.... birds, but deadly to ants. Why?

The ants carry the dried molasses back to their hive, or den, or cave, or home, or whatever it is. There they consume it, including the queen. Ants are exo-skelletin (meaning the outer shell is their bone structure, and it has no flexibility to it. The ants eat the dried molasses, it expands inside them, their exo-skelletin cannot expand, and they blow up killing them ... including the queen.

Give them 2 days, they the entire colony is dead.

Leave some in a plastic soda bottle cap, or a plastic milk bottle cap in the path were you see the ants. They'll carry it back home. Sprinkle it on top of an ant hill. Next day, ants are gone! Sprinkle it around the foundation of your house, and you'll never have ants inside. A couple times a year, sprinkle it over your lawn (like fertlizer) and you'll never have ants anywhere in your yard. It works. I've been doing this for over 20 years now.

The only problem is, finding it. It's not very common, and I've found that even a lot of feed stores don't carry it either. I found old fashioned feed elevators are the best place to find it, and doing a search on the internet, it can be shipped anywhere

The other problem.... it usually comes in 50 pound bags. Remember, this is livestock feed supplement! I keep it stocked at home all the time in sealed containers in the garage. Moisture will cause it to clump up. But only direct contact with water will make it swell. So, even it clumps up, it crumbles easily.

Sprinkle it around your yard, and it smell incredible sweet! Bird can eat it, livestock can eat it, humans can eat it, mice, squirrels, anything ... except bugs with hard outer shells.. like ants.

Did I say, it tastes good to. Not my most favorite snack, but it does taste good! And smells good too!

Edit:

If you ask any farmer who has livestock and uses molasses as a feed supplement, if they have ants around their livestock feeding troughs, they will stop and think for a moment, scratch their heads, and say, "Well, now that you ask... no!" You would think that a horse or cow feeder would attract a lot of ants ... wouldn't you?

AMDRO ant bait.


Sorry miss the first statement. Works, all that I can say. Not picky on which ant takes it. They are all gone in a few days.

Hondavalk wrote:
http://www.terro.com/store/ants?area_to_protect=122_45

Terro products work great. If you go that route make sure the one you pick is for indoor use and also for carpenter ants.

Agree!

They definitely prefer wet wood for nesting, but you don't necessarily have to have wet wood to have them in your trailer.

We got them in our fifth wheel when we stayed at an RV park long term. The park was out by itself and bordered the woods. The space was short and I backed the 5th wheel all the way to the end against the trees. The ants came off the trees into the 5th wheel. They were pretty easy to get rid of because they weren't nesting in the unit.

snookynj wrote:
anyone ever have an issue with carpenter ants. We have an infestation of them. waiting for a reply from exterminator. They are no common to south Florida. Must have picked them up on trip north.

we've only just begun

You have a water leakage problem. As others have said, the thrive on damp wood and tunnel. We had a house once and I could hear them 10 feet away from a window. When I looked I saw their legs coming up through a crack in the sill. Water had leaked in when the window was left open during heavy rain. We called an exterminator. You need to find the leak, besides eradicating them.
There is a Florida Carpenter ant as well.
http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/urban/ants/fl_carpenter_ants.htm

Carpenter ant killer

I've been using this for about 10 years around the outside of my house. I keep a small spray bottle inside for ants when they get in the bathroom during the summer.

It doesn't smell.

A friend of mine works in a pest control company doing house inspections and he recommended it.

Bayer also has it in granules.

coolmom42 wrote:

Kayteg1 wrote:
I had huge ants infestation in one of my homes and the over the counter poisons were garbage.
The "2 years protection" poison would kill ant that were directly sprayed, but 20 minutes later new ants walk over it.
For good poison you need to have licence, or hire licences guy.
That said, I discovered the same thing homedad did.
Ants don't live in the house - they live in nests in the yard and come to the house for feeding.
Meaning if you park the motorhome elsewhere, they will be gone.
Can't officially recommend poison that work well on in-ground nest, but gasoline is way cheaper than the cheapest poison you can buy.

Some types of ants will establish nests indoors. There was a nest of odiferous ants on top of my dishwasher. (Yes, I finally got rid of them!) I use Amdro granules outside all the way around the foundation of the house, replacing them every 2 months. And at the FIRST sign of an ant inside, I get the ant bait out.

This is true. Ants will establish a colony in a house or RV as a satellite nest until a queen is present and then it becomes it's own colony. Eventually it can become a full nest. That's how they work. Some ants will search out new places to set up a satellite nest. If it's suitable a queen can settle in. They view your house or RV as a big hollow tree. I got a pretty good education on Carpenter ants from my local bug guy over the past few years. We do not have an ant problem but would if I didn't educate myself. My neighbor's house was crawling with Carpenter ants for the past 2 years. he ignored my advice to get professional help and only used store bought baits and that never really worked. Now you never see any. I asked my bug guy and he said it's because it's an established nest now and they no longer need to travel from outside in. He said he would hate to see the damage they are doing behind the walls. It's not always wet wood they are after either. Technically they don't really eat wood, but remove it to create the nests. They will eat pet food, meat, jelly etc. They prefer wetter wood as it's easier to tunnel through but I've seen them kill healthy trees on my property. Inside of 2 years they will completely hollow out a mature oak.

John&Joey wrote:
Carpenter ants eat the spores on rotting (wet) wood. If you have more then a few of them you may have a problem somewhere in your RV.

+1 find the wet spot