Three Methods for Ant Control

A friend of ours is battling sugar ants in their bunkhouse. We have dealt with ants on occasion both in the garden and near the house. This gave me the idea for a blog entry on ant control ideas. Here are three methods we have used to combat unwanted ants:

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1) Orange Oil – We have a bottle of Medina’s Orange Oil that we purchased in 2016. After using it all these years and giving some away, we still have some left from that original bottle. I love that this product is natural and has so many uses. This is on my list to purchase this month – just to be sure we don’t run out.

Orange oil is fabulous for killing ants. It breaks down their exoskeleton and kills them rather quickly. This means, though, that it must come into contact with the ants in order to kill them off. We mix a small amount of orange oil with water and a few drops of dish soap (which helps the oil and water better mix) in a spray bottle for spraying ants and areas we want them to avoid. We mix it in a larger container when killing off ant colonies. They say that if you can kill off the queen, you should be able to eliminate the colony. In one garden that we discovered we had planted on top of an ant colony, we dug down a bit until we found the larvae, dumped the orange oil mixture on the colony, and repeated a few days later. Here is the recipe we found: 1 ½ oz. of Medina Orange Oil, 3 oz. Dawn dish washing liquid (we use about 1 oz. of whatever dish soap we have on hand), 1 gallon of water. Mix together and pour or spray over the mound. Repeat one or two more times.

I also use orange oil to remove adhesives from jars and other items. It works really well. It can be used for cleaning and degreasing. When diluted to proper proportions, it can last a very long time (which is why ours has lasted over 8 years). After checking out the following articles, I think we will be incorporating orange oil into our cleaning regimen on a more consistent basis.
 
Here are a few links to ideas for how to use orange oil concentrate:
  1. https://essenceauthority.com/what-is-medina-orange-oil-good-for/
  2. https://greengobbler.com/blog/11-ingenious-uses-for-orange-oil-concentrate-d-limonene
  3. https://www.asktheplantchick.com/2018/05/3-reasons-i-love-orange-oil.html
  4. https://greengobbler.com/blog/what-to-clean-with-orange-oil
2) Borax –In addition to using orange oil on one of the colonies the year our garden was infested with ants, we have used borax mixed with peanut butter to kill them off. I recently read that you can use honey in place of peanut butter, which might be an even better attractant. The idea is that the ants take the peanut butter (or honey) coated borax back to the anthill and consume it.

Borax, like orange oil, has multiple uses. We use it on a regular basis when we make homemade laundry soap. Here is a link to other ways you can use borax (note: we have not tried all of these, so we cannot speak to the efficacy of their suggestions):

3) Ant Bait – We have used liquid ant bait in the mudroom and ant bait stakes in the garden. Both did a great job managing the ant population. In one location where we lived, all we needed to use was the ant bait stakes in the garden. After a week or two, they never came back. At another location, however, we apparently dug the garden on top of an ant colony. We ended up using the methods below to save that section of the garden.


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