Before we start exploring about ant traps, let us know more about ants and their modus operandi. These tiny looking creeks live in nests called colonies.
Some of the ants are designated the task of workers, their prime duty is to gather food from nearby areas and bring it back to nest to feed others.
Sometimes they create new colonies nearby; it can be inside your home or your garden area. Then it becomes necessary to get rid of them by laying different traps.
Ants, you might not know, create secreted trail with pheromones for other ants to follow the path to their food source.
Eliminating these trails will break their trail and often confuse the ants following trail. There are various homemade traps that can deter the march of ants to your house. Let’s find them ourselves.
Sugar Ant Traps
Sugar is one of the types of food they are attracted to. You can use sugar to trap ants by mixing some poisonous material with it.
Do not mix too much poison otherwise they will not be able to take it to colony to feed same poison to other ants. Sugar can be used to trap ants in following ways.
- Take 2 cups of sugar, 1 cup of water and 2 tablespoon boric acid powder. Mix them well and create a paste. Place this paste on cardboards and keep them in kitchen and other corners of the house.
- You can also mix non-grounded sugar with boric acid powder and keep it inside closed containers with holes in it. This method is also safe for kids in your home.
- Mix molasses, yeast and sugar in 2:1:1 ratio to prepare a solution. Place it either in covered jars or in open.
Keep traps prepared with boric acid away from children, it can be harmful if ingested. Prefer to lay traps in closed containers with holes in it to let the ants enter.
Indoor Ant Traps
Chemicals are not always required to make a ant trap. Using household items, you can make DIY in-expensive ant traps.
Even if you have blocked their entry points to kitchen, ants are still able to infest kitchen. An effective and easy trap can be prepared in following method.
- Take some peanut butter and equal quantity of boric acid powder. Mix them well to make a thick paste. Place it on all the areas of ant movement.
Ants are attracted to greasy things and will be attracted to this trap using peanut butter. They will consume it and take some for their fellow ants and queen.
And once other ants in the colony consume this peanut butter, boric acid in it will show its effects, eventually killing them in few minutes.
Pet-safe Ant Trap
Ant traps are easily accessible to pets in a house if laid without keeping them in mind. If you have pets at home, make sure they do not reach the ant traps.
Try following methods to keep pets away from traps
- Take a Tin can; Nail the base of can to any wooden surface. Now put prepared bait inside it and close the lid of can. Pierce some holes on the lid for ants to get inside. Since the can is fixed to surface, pets won’t be able to move it.
- If you are using plastic bottle or a soda can to house bait in it, always crush the most of it after keeping bait mixture in it. Pets have the habit to chew and crush the cans and if it is already crushed, pets will be no more attracted to them.
Natural Ant remedy
Diatomaceous Earth is lethal for ants. The granules of DE have very sharp edges. These can cut the body of ants, dehydrates them and finally kills them. You can make use of DE as a trap in following way
- Sprinkle DE along the suspected trail of ants.
- Or squirt it directly over the Nest.
Final Words
Ants can be trapped, using household ingredients, as we have seen above. There are other things in home like cinnamon, vinegar, salt, cloves, bay leaves and cucumber seeds which can be used to deter the ants from invasion.
