The Ants Are Marching One by One

If you have every been to camp or was a member of a Scout organization, you may remember this ant counting song, I included the first verse:

The ants go marching one by one, Hurrah!! Hurrah!!
The ants go marching one by one, Hurrah!! Hurrah!!
The ants go marching one by one,
The little one stopped to suck his thumb,
And they all go marching down, around, and upside down.

The lyrics are dancing through my mind as I write about deterring the trail of ants and removing these unwanted party crashers from your home. There are many natural remedies that have been proven which may be preferable to using chemical products or commercial ant baits. Regardless of which you may choose to use, it is probably even more important to understand specifically how they work so that you can make the most informed decision about which method to employ in your home taking into account children, pets, and other home lifestyle issues.

Have you observed that ants follow a specific path to the location of food sources? A cartoon image came to mind where the ants are marching along one by one to a beautiful spread of food on a picnic blanket. The swarm of ants is large enough for the ants to pick up the picnic basket and walk away with it towards their nest.

On a serious side, ant behavior (to find food) is influenced by pheromones. Pheromones are chemicals released by an organism into its environment enabling it to communicate with other members of its own species.

Some ant species will lay down a trail pheromone as they return to the nest with food. Like leaving a trail of bread crumbs, it is a marker to attract and guide other ants to the food source. As long as the food source remains, the trail is reinforced. However, if and when the supply begins to dwindle, the ants cease making the trail. If you have ever watched an ant go around in circles seemingly confused, it may be that several trails are present, but to prevent this from happening over a long period of time, the trail pheromone evaporates quickly so other ants will stop coming to the site and are not confused by old trails when food is found elsewhere. There are some ant species that mark the trail of a dwindling food source with a repellant pheromone.

I made a wonderful discovery a couple years ago. I decided to go outside and watch the ants that were close to the outside of my house. I watched carefully until I saw a pattern. I followed the ant trail which lead to a backyard tree about 20 feet from my house. I followed the ants up the tree into the bark. So now that I realized that the ants were not hosted in the house, but rather in the tree, I then sprayed the tree, the trails leading to my house (which were many), the outside of the house including around doorways and areas where the wood siding met the brick foundation. This process was very effective. For the indoors, I have used many methods specifically for carpenter ants and the tiny reddish brown “sugar ants”.

So now that you understand more about ant behavior, keep in mind that what you are actually doing to rid yourself from invading ants is 1.) destroy the presence of the pheromone trail, 2. Confuse the trail or introduce a “product” which will break the trail; 3.) provide a tainted food source that will kill the ants once the food is eaten; and lastly; 4.) kill the ants on sight. Here are some researched methods to deterring and killing some of the popular ant species:

Killing Ants:

When you kill an ant, immediately wipe the surface area around the ant, because ants also release an alarm pheromone to alert other ants about danger. “When an ant is disturbed, it releases a pheromone that can be detected by other ants several centimeters away. They are attracted by low concentrations of the pheromone and begin to move toward the region of increasing concentration. As they get nearer to their disturbed nestmate, their response changes to one of alarm. The higher concentration causes them to run about as they work to remedy the disturbance.” I had always wondered why or how ants knew about other dead ants, it seemed as if they were coming to the rescue of a wounded soldier to carry the dead ant home.

1. Boric Acid with Sugar (borax with sugar): Ants are attracted to the sweets but since boric acid is colorless and tasteless, the ants bring both back to the nest colony.
2. Spray the outside of the house exterior and don’t forget to watch for a pattern of their trail so you can treat those areas as well (as in my case, the originating source was 20 feet away).
3. Ant baits (but please read the label) - All ant baits will not take care of all ants.
4. Set up a bait bottle with honey and a small hole which they can enter. The ants will drown in the honey and also will not be able to get out of the sticky bottle.
5. Moth balls (this one should not be used around small children or pets) I experimented with this and placed crumbled moth flakes in the areas where I saw the large black carpenter ants. Within a day, the ants removed all of the crumbled flakes and brought back to their nest.

Deterring Ants    Will discourage ants, but they can always make a new trail

1. Pepper (Red, White, or Black) or red chili pepper: Ants hate pepper and using pepper along their trail will discourage them.
2. Basic spices: Cinnamon, cloves, bay leaves, fresh or dried mint leaves are deterrents when placed around problem areas.

Basic household procedures

1. Wash the dishes regularly.
2. Wipe down your kitchen counters and treat baseboards (You can use bleach water, or Windex or ammonia or cider vinegar mixture)
3. Don’t leave plates, food or food wrappers around the house.
4. Seal door sills, window sills, and mend broken screens.
5. At least twice a week, mop floors in problem areas.
6. Use seal tight containers with lids for any food and leftovers, pay close attention to food products that are sweet or contain starch).
7. Remove the trash often.
8. Which ever method you choose, treat around the water pipes under sinks, in the bathroom, basement and kitchen.

Outside procedures:

1. Remove any old wood that can provide a nest for the ants,
2. Look for high moisture areas which may attract ants like roofs, gutters, window wells, under windows which have air conditioners, etc…

For more home remedies, you can refer to many internet sites including http://www.thefrugallife.com/ants.html