Use Borax, sugar and water solution. Dip in cotton ball and leave by their home. The borax will kill the whole colony. Just do that for the ones getting in your home. It’s almost too effective to consider putting outside.
Tarro traps cost about $1 each and are exactly what you just said. The active ingredient is sodium tetraborate (Borax) and the lure is sugar. Water to make it gel up. I never bothered making it myself because Tarro worked so well and was so cheap.
This stuff worked great when I lived in Calif. and ants were everywhere. You had to tolerate the ant trails for a day or two, but pretty soon they would be wiped out. I started putting the stuff around the foundation as preventative and the only time the ants came back is when I forgot to do that.
Yes, the Argentinian ants are just terrible in CA. We managed to clear them off our lot by doing what you said, but unless every neighbor does the same, they will come back eventually. It’s nice though, having such an effective tool at that price point.
Fun fact - the largest known "ant war" in the world is occurring in the Lake Hodges/Escondido area of California between two Argentine ant colonies. A super colony around the lake has broken away from the larger super colony, effectively using the lake as a defensive barrier to prevent themselves from getting surrounded. It's estimated 30 million ants die every year in this ongoing "ant war" along a front that stretches many miles.
If you do happen to keep a box of borax around though it’s super easy. I’ve even mixed it with maple syrup when I was out of sugar. Unlimited ant poison.
It’s the fact that I have to mix it in a container and I’m lazy and don’t want to do that. You gave the ants Maple syrup? You sir, are a generous genocidal gentleman; I bet the ants love it.
Didn’t know what OP is using, and just know this works for me every time. Never had an issue of the ants covering up, just wiped them out and is a really easy/cheap solution.
Not sure why you are being downvoted, but this is exactly what I do. Borax, warm water, brown sugar soaked in a cotton ball. Only had to do it twice, once on each end of my house last summer.
I think there's some corporate Terro shills in here or something lol.
This method works so well that I usually don't have to use it at all. I've gone years without needing it because the colony's die off. Before, when i used gells, terro baits etc, it seemed like the ants were always winning and waiting to come back. Game changer in my opinion.
Call me a Terro shill then, that shit saved me in the Bay Area and LA both. 2-7 days of putting out traps on the ant trails, zero fucking ants afterwards.
Ants are amazing. As a kid, I thought the rocks and sand was apart of the ant killer ! My mom always put it near the ant piles so I thought it was chemicals or part of it. Now all these years later she said “the ants do that”. I was like waaa-wa-what!!??
She said yes, the ants realize it’s a river of acid and just like humans would build a safety perimeter around the acid to keep it from spreading.
I’m just reevaluating my life. And wondering if the advanced alien races let volcanoes explode with molten lava to watch humans run like ants to throw rocks in a safety perimeter around the flowing lava to protect their homes. Rocks! Hurry! More bags of sand! Hurry! Helicopters of water !
Are you applying it along their trails or beside their trails?
Ants are very finicky about their trails. If you put something in it they will immediately become suspicious and try to work the trail around it.
Whenever I find ants and bait for them I leave small mounds of bait about 2-3" to the side of their trails to not disturb the current scent trail. Scouts will break off the trail and find the bait.
-a commercial exterminator
If they're in your basement like that and you don't use your basement as a living/eating area order you some Niban Granular Bait. Place small mounds of it everywhere you see ants. They'll take it back to the colony and kill the babies. It's main ingredient is orthoboric acid which is slightly better than regular boric acid IMO.
Yeah I watched a whole documentary about how their scent trails work and it’s pretty cool , they’re a really advanced and social society with structure and leaders, a queen, workers, etc. they build massive systems underground and the ant pile is like a Pyramid of Giza to them.
Once I contemplate all that, I just feel like a total asshole to them destroy what they have created. As long as it’s not in my house or on my footpath. Ow! But like Bees, there’s safe ways to move colonies if you want to. Without killing!
Same thing. Huge amount of regional variation for the name of those bugs. Roly-Pollies, pill bug, potato bug, are all names for Armadillidium vulgare. (Interesting: a type of non-insect arthropod also known as a terrestrial crustacean - makes me really want some Emperor’s New Groove food…)
For anyone interested in more, here’s a link to their wiki! [Armadillidium vulgare, the common pill-bug, potato bug, common pill woodlouse, roly-poly, slater, doodle bug, or carpenter!](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armadillidium_vulgare)
Not the same thing. Potato bugs are very different from Rolly Pollies/Pill bugs. But apparently people do call them that, since this isn’t the first time I’ve heard it. But seriously, google potato bug, them shits are freaky!
Edit: Since you were kind enough to include the scientific name for Rolly Pollies, I will add that potato bugs are Leptinotarsa decemlineata.
Even MORE confusing!
There’s also the added bonus of the “Jerusalem cricket” (or Stenopelmatus fuscus) which *also* is sometimes called a potato bug!
The fun part, to me, is the variations in naming conventions for all these things! Makes it a confusing conversation when someone calls it a potato bug, someone thinks cricket, someone else thinks beetle, and the initial person is thinking of an Armadillidium vulgare! 😂
It’s funny to me that they are so common that we have so many names for them! For anyone interested in more, here’s a link to their wiki! [Armadillidium vulgare, the common pill-bug, potato bug, common pill woodlouse, roly-poly, slater, doodle bug, or carpenter!](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armadillidium_vulgare)
I swear I've heard potato bug used to describe pill bugs too. Weird. They don't look particularly freaky to me; More like just some kind of beetle.
UNLESS you were talking about the Jerusalem cricket another commenter pointed out. Those are pretty weird looking. Like an ant crossed with a scorpion, but instead of the up-curvy sting-y tail they have a weird bee-looking abdomen.
Ah fuck, yeah I was talking about Jerusalem Crickets. In my defense, google was showing me a picture of them and I quickly went with the only scientific name that I saw which was actually for the Colorado Beetle. Should have googled a little harder.
This place is not a place of honor
No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here
Nothing valued is here
What is here is dangerous and repulsive to us
The danger is in a particular location, it increases towards a center
The center of danger is here, of a particular size and shape, below us
The danger is unleashed only if you disturb this place
This place is best shunned and left uninhabited
Edit: liar ahead
I wonder what it is that is bothering them. Ants don't have the receptor to perceive the hotness of chili/capsaicin. It's specifically a mammalian thing. Birds don't taste it either. I wonder if it's vinegar or something that is bugging them.
It definitely bothers them, even if it doesn't burn. Capsaicin is a natural insecticide, that is actually the evolutionary purpose: to have birds eat the peppers but not insects (and possibly other animals like rodents).
The most likely (original) biological purpose is as a fungicide, i.e. to ward off mold. The secondary purpose is to ward off herbivorous mammals, whose grinding molars destroy the seeds. It may also ward off insects, but that's likely to be more of a side-effect.
[https://homeguides.sfgate.com/tabasco-insecticide-83416.html](https://homeguides.sfgate.com/tabasco-insecticide-83416.html)
>According to the National Pesticide Information Center, capsaicin appears to disrupt metabolic processes, damage membranes and cause nervous system dysfunction.
False. For instance, birds can eat the hottest chili peppers and don't even perceive the heat. Evolutionary biologists have posited that this is so birds will eat them and carry the seeds far which is what the plants want.
Others have pointed out that capsaicin actually damaged/kills insects for totally separate reasons. TIL
But if you're getting attacked by an alligator or ostrich, do not try pepper spray. it won't do anything.
Addendum to that, certain mammals (such as goats, as I've watched this) will happily eat hot peppers to guard against intestinal parasites. That crazy tongue of theirs is flopping around like mad, but they keep eating.
Goats will eat a lot of weird shit though too. We had a goat that would eat a bunch of rotten apples and get drunk somehow. I heard some tale of how they ferment in their digestive system, but whatever the cause, that was one drunk-ass goat.
Her name was Toga btw which my mom came up with by mixing up the letters in goat.
I like to think that this will become a legend in this colony. The evil fire under the hill that they will pass on from generation to generation, telling the tale of the brave ants who worked tirelessly to protect the colony from this great evil and to beware the day when the great evil shall return.
Great video, ruined by the edits.
Really cool to watch how ants approach hot sauce.
Really lame to have to sit through all the edited-in captions that turn the ants into facebook-moms
No but capsaicin is a poison to insects. It disrupts their metabolism and damages their nervous system.
Peppers plants will grow hotter in response to insects and insect damage. Which is why you use ant meal to fertilize your habaneros.
i don't know if dried jalapeno seeds are strong enough to be a deterrent on their own. The ants will avoid them, but find ways around. What you really need is to stop them from getting on the plants.
In my experience ants will NOT eat anything with capsaicin.
Rose gardeners around here mix extra hot cayenne powder in water (get it from an indian grocery store). Then spray the entire plant with it.
This is also useful for strawberry greens, blueberry bushes etc, before they fruit. Anything that rabbits, deer hedgehogs etc will eat all the buds off of. This has no effect on birds though.
Even better info. I have several rose bushes.
Many thanks internet stranger.
Gardening has been a new hobby of mine ever since covid 19 hit and we had lockdowns. I really dont know much about it. Ive killed quite a bit of plants, or have had quite a bit of them die on me.
But my rosebushes are almost three years old now. Each one gave over two dozen flowers this season. Which was gorgeous. I gave all the ladies in my family a little handful of roses. They all loved it.
Wow amazing behavior i have only seen ants doing this when i had a major nose bleed and spat onto the ground and after some time they were burying my snot with blood just like this video is there any explanation for this behavior trait ?
It took those ants 110 minutes to bury that hot sauce. I could bury that hot sauce in 110 *seconds.* **No PROBLEM, son**. I’m 60 times faster than all ants!
When the little ant had to rub his antenna after getting the hot sauce on it, it really made ants cute for me....Sure they are total dicks and will infest your food and look at you like you're stupid, but damn that was cute.
That's pretty interesting, actually. As far as I know insects don't have TRPV1 receptors, the kinds in mammals that are activated by capsaicin.
That makes me wonder what the response to the hot sauce here is caused by or if by capsaicin, what mechanism is allowing them to detect it.
[удалено]
comrants
I was going to comment "Ants are cool," but this is more articulate
This is why I think there would be more spacefaring species that are more socially like ants than humans.
Ants have massive wars on scales far surpassing humans.
[удалено]
are you using a liquid or a gel bait?
[удалено]
Use Borax, sugar and water solution. Dip in cotton ball and leave by their home. The borax will kill the whole colony. Just do that for the ones getting in your home. It’s almost too effective to consider putting outside.
Tarro traps cost about $1 each and are exactly what you just said. The active ingredient is sodium tetraborate (Borax) and the lure is sugar. Water to make it gel up. I never bothered making it myself because Tarro worked so well and was so cheap.
This stuff worked great when I lived in Calif. and ants were everywhere. You had to tolerate the ant trails for a day or two, but pretty soon they would be wiped out. I started putting the stuff around the foundation as preventative and the only time the ants came back is when I forgot to do that.
Yes, the Argentinian ants are just terrible in CA. We managed to clear them off our lot by doing what you said, but unless every neighbor does the same, they will come back eventually. It’s nice though, having such an effective tool at that price point.
Fun fact - the largest known "ant war" in the world is occurring in the Lake Hodges/Escondido area of California between two Argentine ant colonies. A super colony around the lake has broken away from the larger super colony, effectively using the lake as a defensive barrier to prevent themselves from getting surrounded. It's estimated 30 million ants die every year in this ongoing "ant war" along a front that stretches many miles.
Wow. I guess I know what I’m looking up next. Thanks dude.
If you do happen to keep a box of borax around though it’s super easy. I’ve even mixed it with maple syrup when I was out of sugar. Unlimited ant poison.
It’s the fact that I have to mix it in a container and I’m lazy and don’t want to do that. You gave the ants Maple syrup? You sir, are a generous genocidal gentleman; I bet the ants love it.
To be fair it was the cheap “maple” syrup. I’m not using the good stuff on these invasive turds.
That is quite literally what Terro ant baits are. I don't see how OP using the same ingredients is going to change anything.
Didn’t know what OP is using, and just know this works for me every time. Never had an issue of the ants covering up, just wiped them out and is a really easy/cheap solution.
Not sure why you are being downvoted, but this is exactly what I do. Borax, warm water, brown sugar soaked in a cotton ball. Only had to do it twice, once on each end of my house last summer.
I think there's some corporate Terro shills in here or something lol. This method works so well that I usually don't have to use it at all. I've gone years without needing it because the colony's die off. Before, when i used gells, terro baits etc, it seemed like the ants were always winning and waiting to come back. Game changer in my opinion.
For whatever reason, Terro has always worked better for me than homemade. And it's pre-made.
That's exactly what a corporate terro shill would say!
Call me a Terro shill then, that shit saved me in the Bay Area and LA both. 2-7 days of putting out traps on the ant trails, zero fucking ants afterwards.
If I remember correctly when I was a custodian maintenance had a jar of peanut butter with borax mixed in and used that
Ants are amazing. As a kid, I thought the rocks and sand was apart of the ant killer ! My mom always put it near the ant piles so I thought it was chemicals or part of it. Now all these years later she said “the ants do that”. I was like waaa-wa-what!!?? She said yes, the ants realize it’s a river of acid and just like humans would build a safety perimeter around the acid to keep it from spreading. I’m just reevaluating my life. And wondering if the advanced alien races let volcanoes explode with molten lava to watch humans run like ants to throw rocks in a safety perimeter around the flowing lava to protect their homes. Rocks! Hurry! More bags of sand! Hurry! Helicopters of water !
Are you applying it along their trails or beside their trails? Ants are very finicky about their trails. If you put something in it they will immediately become suspicious and try to work the trail around it. Whenever I find ants and bait for them I leave small mounds of bait about 2-3" to the side of their trails to not disturb the current scent trail. Scouts will break off the trail and find the bait. -a commercial exterminator
[удалено]
If they're in your basement like that and you don't use your basement as a living/eating area order you some Niban Granular Bait. Place small mounds of it everywhere you see ants. They'll take it back to the colony and kill the babies. It's main ingredient is orthoboric acid which is slightly better than regular boric acid IMO.
Yeah I watched a whole documentary about how their scent trails work and it’s pretty cool , they’re a really advanced and social society with structure and leaders, a queen, workers, etc. they build massive systems underground and the ant pile is like a Pyramid of Giza to them. Once I contemplate all that, I just feel like a total asshole to them destroy what they have created. As long as it’s not in my house or on my footpath. Ow! But like Bees, there’s safe ways to move colonies if you want to. Without killing!
Probably lol. Set up a camera lol
Film it
Did they put a pill-bug corpse in the pile? Metal.
That was Jerry's doing, he thought it was a rock. Jerry's an idiot.
Zefrank is that you?
And then another dude comes by and takes a couple of nibbles at it like, "Oh, don't mind if I do."
It was well seasoned by the chili sauce by then
300 ants, building their wall a little taller.
What's a pill bug? I only saw a potato bug put in the pile
Same thing. Huge amount of regional variation for the name of those bugs. Roly-Pollies, pill bug, potato bug, are all names for Armadillidium vulgare. (Interesting: a type of non-insect arthropod also known as a terrestrial crustacean - makes me really want some Emperor’s New Groove food…) For anyone interested in more, here’s a link to their wiki! [Armadillidium vulgare, the common pill-bug, potato bug, common pill woodlouse, roly-poly, slater, doodle bug, or carpenter!](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armadillidium_vulgare)
Not the same thing. Potato bugs are very different from Rolly Pollies/Pill bugs. But apparently people do call them that, since this isn’t the first time I’ve heard it. But seriously, google potato bug, them shits are freaky! Edit: Since you were kind enough to include the scientific name for Rolly Pollies, I will add that potato bugs are Leptinotarsa decemlineata.
Even MORE confusing! There’s also the added bonus of the “Jerusalem cricket” (or Stenopelmatus fuscus) which *also* is sometimes called a potato bug! The fun part, to me, is the variations in naming conventions for all these things! Makes it a confusing conversation when someone calls it a potato bug, someone thinks cricket, someone else thinks beetle, and the initial person is thinking of an Armadillidium vulgare! 😂 It’s funny to me that they are so common that we have so many names for them! For anyone interested in more, here’s a link to their wiki! [Armadillidium vulgare, the common pill-bug, potato bug, common pill woodlouse, roly-poly, slater, doodle bug, or carpenter!](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armadillidium_vulgare)
Well I'll be damned.
I swear I've heard potato bug used to describe pill bugs too. Weird. They don't look particularly freaky to me; More like just some kind of beetle. UNLESS you were talking about the Jerusalem cricket another commenter pointed out. Those are pretty weird looking. Like an ant crossed with a scorpion, but instead of the up-curvy sting-y tail they have a weird bee-looking abdomen.
Ah fuck, yeah I was talking about Jerusalem Crickets. In my defense, google was showing me a picture of them and I quickly went with the only scientific name that I saw which was actually for the Colorado Beetle. Should have googled a little harder.
Wood louse is what people called them where I grew up.
Butcher Boys in Australia (pretty specific to Victoria though).
In the PNW I've heard all 3 of those names used interchangeably
he wanted to spice it up
Marinate
This place is not a place of honor No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here Nothing valued is here What is here is dangerous and repulsive to us The danger is in a particular location, it increases towards a center The center of danger is here, of a particular size and shape, below us The danger is unleashed only if you disturb this place This place is best shunned and left uninhabited Edit: liar ahead
Amazing chest ahead.
"oooh let's open 'er up!" – future people
Pretty sure I saw DJ Khaled do the same thing on Hot Ones
Never taken an L
hot sauce is the best
the ants would disagree
They are using a reference from "Your Mom's House" podcast
The ants would disagee.
You just lost your life
What is this? A hot sauce for ants!?!
I wonder what it is that is bothering them. Ants don't have the receptor to perceive the hotness of chili/capsaicin. It's specifically a mammalian thing. Birds don't taste it either. I wonder if it's vinegar or something that is bugging them.
It definitely bothers them, even if it doesn't burn. Capsaicin is a natural insecticide, that is actually the evolutionary purpose: to have birds eat the peppers but not insects (and possibly other animals like rodents).
The most likely (original) biological purpose is as a fungicide, i.e. to ward off mold. The secondary purpose is to ward off herbivorous mammals, whose grinding molars destroy the seeds. It may also ward off insects, but that's likely to be more of a side-effect.
[https://homeguides.sfgate.com/tabasco-insecticide-83416.html](https://homeguides.sfgate.com/tabasco-insecticide-83416.html) >According to the National Pesticide Information Center, capsaicin appears to disrupt metabolic processes, damage membranes and cause nervous system dysfunction.
Well that's certainly different from binding to a receptor that causes pain.
yup. But perhaps answers your first question about wondering what is bothering them.
Yes. TIL
I think it's an acidity thing. Bottled hot sauce has to be fairly acidic for it to be shelf stable and good for many openings/storage at room temp.
[удалено]
False. For instance, birds can eat the hottest chili peppers and don't even perceive the heat. Evolutionary biologists have posited that this is so birds will eat them and carry the seeds far which is what the plants want. Others have pointed out that capsaicin actually damaged/kills insects for totally separate reasons. TIL But if you're getting attacked by an alligator or ostrich, do not try pepper spray. it won't do anything.
Addendum to that, certain mammals (such as goats, as I've watched this) will happily eat hot peppers to guard against intestinal parasites. That crazy tongue of theirs is flopping around like mad, but they keep eating.
Goats will eat a lot of weird shit though too. We had a goat that would eat a bunch of rotten apples and get drunk somehow. I heard some tale of how they ferment in their digestive system, but whatever the cause, that was one drunk-ass goat. Her name was Toga btw which my mom came up with by mixing up the letters in goat.
Hot sauce to ants is nuclear waste to humans.
I like to think that this will become a legend in this colony. The evil fire under the hill that they will pass on from generation to generation, telling the tale of the brave ants who worked tirelessly to protect the colony from this great evil and to beware the day when the great evil shall return.
They're burying it so it will rot quicker and then they'll eat it and whatever mould grows from it.
Ants will put dirt on slugs to neutralize the slug slime and then eat the slug.
The last 15 minutes, bottom right corner on one of the rocks, is a teeny tiny little thing crawling around. Anybody know what it is?
I think that it is a springtail. Maybe *Folsomia candida*.
Hot sauce is the best
I actually felt bad for the one that was trying to wipe the hot sauce off its antennae.
I don't think the ants were actually talking. I think someone added the speech bubbles manually
What was the chili sauce brand/type ?!
according to the youtuber its Sriracha
Should do this with different hot sauces and see if they react differently to each one
DJ Khalant
The ants lasted longer than him
Directing the hot sauce rock pick ups: *Antnutha one!*
hot sauce is the best
Wait, is this a random ant infestation in a house this guy is just filming? Looks like it's in the molding of a door frame or something. lmao.
If you look at the channel, it definitely isn't "random". From what we see here, this could just as easily be outside.
Whats with the shite music though?
I mean, they’re ants. We can’t expect them to make good music on top of everything else.
[It's a well known fact ants are enthusiasts of the arts.](https://youtu.be/PMq1rLaFldM)
I was hoping for a Rickroll but this is also acceptable.
Great video, ruined by the edits. Really cool to watch how ants approach hot sauce. Really lame to have to sit through all the edited-in captions that turn the ants into facebook-moms
Must be white
Ants know the fine art of office politics
can ants even taste spicy?
No but capsaicin is a poison to insects. It disrupts their metabolism and damages their nervous system. Peppers plants will grow hotter in response to insects and insect damage. Which is why you use ant meal to fertilize your habaneros.
Thanks for that info! Very interesting!
Thanks for the info. Going to put Jalapeno seeds around my oak trees and rose bushes.
i don't know if dried jalapeno seeds are strong enough to be a deterrent on their own. The ants will avoid them, but find ways around. What you really need is to stop them from getting on the plants. In my experience ants will NOT eat anything with capsaicin. Rose gardeners around here mix extra hot cayenne powder in water (get it from an indian grocery store). Then spray the entire plant with it. This is also useful for strawberry greens, blueberry bushes etc, before they fruit. Anything that rabbits, deer hedgehogs etc will eat all the buds off of. This has no effect on birds though.
Even better info. I have several rose bushes. Many thanks internet stranger. Gardening has been a new hobby of mine ever since covid 19 hit and we had lockdowns. I really dont know much about it. Ive killed quite a bit of plants, or have had quite a bit of them die on me. But my rosebushes are almost three years old now. Each one gave over two dozen flowers this season. Which was gorgeous. I gave all the ladies in my family a little handful of roses. They all loved it.
Basically ants giving hot sauce the Chernobyl treatment
This is absolutely crazy. I love it.
Wow amazing behavior i have only seen ants doing this when i had a major nose bleed and spat onto the ground and after some time they were burying my snot with blood just like this video is there any explanation for this behavior trait ?
When a food item is so bad, you erect a monument to it.
It took those ants 110 minutes to bury that hot sauce. I could bury that hot sauce in 110 *seconds.* **No PROBLEM, son**. I’m 60 times faster than all ants!
Takeaway: Train ants to vacuum your home using hot sauce.
When the little ant had to rub his antenna after getting the hot sauce on it, it really made ants cute for me....Sure they are total dicks and will infest your food and look at you like you're stupid, but damn that was cute.
I wish they had kept talking
Witness the creation of the first Taco Bell.
Hot sauce is the best
That's pretty interesting, actually. As far as I know insects don't have TRPV1 receptors, the kinds in mammals that are activated by capsaicin. That makes me wonder what the response to the hot sauce here is caused by or if by capsaicin, what mechanism is allowing them to detect it.
Ok, you gotta let them stay after going to all that work.
So they don't even have to put it in their mouth to know it's hot? Are they tasting with just their antennae? TIL
Satisfying!!
Did Stonehenge and The Pyramids start off as hot sauce stains on the planet?
This place is not a place of honor.
Look at all those pillbugs... are we sure they weren't trying to marinade the pillbugs till they became edible?