Yes -- Borax got rid of the ants!
Here's how to use Borax to get rid of ants when those little tiny ones get into your home! It's so easy, and so much more affordable in the long run than buying commercial ant baits.
Note: This post is a blast from the pretty far past. Originally published in 2013, using Borax to kill ants is still relevant today -- because these darn ants, they are back every year.
When I ran a Borax giveaway a while back, several of you asked if using Borax really did get rid of the ants. Survey says: Yes! I haven't seen one in my kitchen since putting out this homemade ant-killing Borax recipe a couple of times. It works at least as well as, if not better than, the little ant bait things -- and is so much more affordable in the long run than investing in baits over and over again.
It's easy to use Borax to get rid of ants, and picking up Borax is a better long term investment, since you can also use it for other purposes.
Use Borax to get rid of ants
Is it just me, or do you see a new annoying batch of tiny ants in your house every spring, too? I always get a bunch of little ants coming into my kitchen under one of the cabinets that backs up against an outside wall. I originally saw a suggestion online to sprinkle a line of Borax and sugar along where the ants are coming in, but didn’t want to leave that out because of our cats.
So instead, I used this effective ant-killing Borax recipe from The Happy Housewife:
- Mix ½ C sugar, 1 ½ tablespoon Borax, and 1.5 C warm water.
- Soak some cotton balls in the mixture, and put them out near the mess of ants.
- The sugar attracts the ants, and they'll take the Borax with it back to their home.
- Eating the Borax kills the ants!
If you have small children or pets, be sure to keep them away from Borax -- and always wash your hands after using.
Note: Thanks to several commenters who add that: If your ants don't seem to be attracted to sugar, try mixing in some peanut butter instead. They may have a savory tooth rather than a sweet tooth! Just like people, insects are all different... 🙂
Some ants do love sugar...
BOY do these particular ants like this mixture. In the initial Boraxian experiment, I locked the cats in the bedroom for a few hours and set several soaked cotton balls in a line along the edge of the cabinet where the ants were coming in. I let the ants go to town, picked up the cotton balls, wiped up the floor, then let the cats out. Then, I repeated the experiment for a second round of about an hour later in the evening (seeing many fewer ants on this second go-round). By morning? No new ants in sight.
Tip: Try mixing in peanut butter for a more savory ant-attracting formula, if your batch of ants doesn't seem to care for the sugar.
The Borax Effect lasts for some time. When the ants inevitably return, though, it's super easy to whip up another little batch.
Have you tried Borax to get rid of ants in your home? Comment here and let us know how it worked for you!
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I have used cornmeal and have been successful in getting rid of ants that way too!! Just put a line out, sometimes even dumping a bit right near where the ants seemed to be coming from. And within a day--no ants!!
Cornmeal is conditional. 1. You can't get it wet before they ingest it. This may include not putting it in a refrigerator, dew(if using outside), or near an area whether you've had a moist room. Plus, you'll have to add a waterless second food item that is more attractive to them than the cornmeal(and that easily merges with it) or they might not eat it too quickly. Some eat raw CM quickly and some don't. 2. It only seems to work on certain ants. I found that it didn't work on the tiny black ants at all, but had mixed results with fire ants: it killed off one huge colony of fire ants. It took a long time; it seemed like it took at least 3 months(was a big colony). Bait was changed out only once. However, the next time we tried it, they didn't take the honey+CM bait that had worked so well on the other FA colony. Neither did subbing in peanut butter for honey and/or baking soda for cornmeal help, as they loved it and it did not seem to rid our home of them. Raid got rid of them that time.
Deterrent: I found that cayenne pepper works for the tiny black ants. It doesn't seem to work on fire ants, though. Put it where they come in and throughout their trafficked areas. It takes about 2-3 days if you already have an infestation. They'll walk right through as if it doesn't bother them, but it will! Eventually, you won't see them again there. My guess is that it has the same effect as it does on people that are not used to eating hot stuff--maybe to the extreme! It does not kill them, but they'll definitely have to try and find another way in. Since this is the case, go around your home and seal up openings; add cayenne pepper powder to openings; and/or add wind and rain proof poison to your openings on the outside. Or you could find out where they are on the outside--if it can be seen. I suspect sometimes they come from underneath or have a nest inside your home.
I have heard that Borax and Boric acid really works well on ants, roaches, etc. Some say use it as a food bait and some say use it as a powder that they'll cross for their own demise. My guess is that you can do both. Plus, it is said it is only slightly toxic and also said that the gov't labels it as if it were as toxic as table salt.
I've been using borax and sugar on the little black ants for a couple years and it works really well for me. They are attracted to our humming bird feeders so I already knew they liked sugar water.
Fire ants on the other hand are little murder machines so they prefer protein to carbs (sugar). I used a 5 to 1 ratio of peanut butter to borax to wipe out a couple fire ant colonies in my yard.
It took couple of weeks though. Typically i can kill off the black ones in a matter of days.
This is great news. I have tiny brown ants in the bathroom coming in though concrete plus at least 10 colonies outside along foundation and fire ants in a couple of spots in the garden. I have all 3 ingredients and will be using this for sure. I have cats so it occurred to me to use a containing from recycling with tiny holes cut for the ants to crawl under for the cotton ball soaked in borax and sugar and or peanut butter etc. This way the cats do not get to the cotton ball. I have one cat that I would actually have to wonder if she’d go for it lol. She’s old and odd but from what I hear some cats really enjoy human food.
Killing them in the house is good but they are a benefit in the garden. If they are away from the house let them be.
depends on the garden. a food garden full of ants means you have aphids and that can be a disaster for your food and plants.
I saw a thing on TV today about this. I didn't get the exact recipe but it was using Karo corn syrup and some water. This was added to the Borax and they used small plastic lids (Pringles can) to pour the slurry into. From there you could place them anywhere and use even smaller lids, like soda or water bottles, for the close knit corners you'd be able to access with the smaller versions.
I'VE NOT YET TRIED THIS but 100% going to!
Yes, Loren Nancarrow, a TV announcer in the 90's, aired the recipe of mixing Karo Syrup and Boric Acid. The ants love the syrup and the boric acid gets on the "feet" and that messes up their trail so they can't find their way back. Don't forget to refresh the supply every few months so another crop doesn't come back.
Have you tried boric acid and sweetened condensed milk. Make a paste and spread it where needed. This was what I was taught when I moved to Texas
Anything sweet will do. Sugar, honey, etc. I use sugar because it's always available in my house and because it's cheap.
👍🏻
I have tree ants bad in my house does this work on all ants
They may be carpenter ants. Have your home inspected.
What is a tree ant?
How do I get rid of ant hills in my yard. My yard is covered in ant hills. Help me.
Help me fast pleas. My yard looks awful. Joyce
If you have ant "hills" they could be fire ants and they have a painful sting. 5 to 1 ratio of borax to peanut butter make a good bait but you have to mix it up really well. Putting the borax in with some water and making a paste then warming in the microwave before mixing helps. It can take a couple of weeks to completely destroy the colony and you will have to resupply the bait every other day or so because fire ants like to bury their food.
OK, that said I hate fire ants and if you have several mounds I suggest you resort to chemical warfare. Pour a liquid killer with Acephate directly onto each mound to wipe them out instantly then use a granular poison that will settle into the soil to keep them out of your yard longer term.
For more info Google "How to do the fire ant two-step" and watch the YouTube video. It's only a minute and seven seconds long.
Or you could call an exterminator. Good luck.
.
I have animals so I am not able to use the chemical stuff. I boil big huge pots of water and we dump it on our ant piles near the porch edges and sidewalks ... you will find little ant bodies everywhere the next morning but it really works. I then leave out borax bait or diatomaceous earth sprinkled on old mound and they don't come back.
You can add Dawn dish soap to the water..
My parents live outside of town in the desert, and they pour a tiny bit of gas down fire ant hills and light them on fire. They make sure there is no dry grass or anything nearby before doing this. My mom says it works! Though boiling water seems safer 😉 I will try this sugar/borax solution as I'm currently fightin with tiny black ants in our kitchen! GROSS!
Try a pot of boiling water on the ant pile. That's how my uncle used to get rid of termites.
Found my notes from 1994: Newscaster, Loren Nancarrow, can help you with your ant problem
with his special ant bait.
You'll find it effective, but be patient --
it may take a week to 10 days to be fully effective.
In the meantime kill ants
in the house with Windex or another ammonia-based cleaner.
Clean and kill, all in one motion.
Loren Nancarrow’s Ant Killer Recipe:
1 part 20 Mule Team Borax or Boric acid
9 parts of a sweet sticky liquid like maple syrup,
honey or Karo syrup
Mix the ingredients (Skipping this part works fine..too messy)
Heating in a double boiler may speed the process.
Take an empty margarine tub and poke 4 holes
around the bottom edge (entry holes for ants to walk in).
Place a dollop the size of a quarter in the middle
of the tub, then put the top back on.
This mixture is not non-toxic,
however it is less toxic,
and that's the key to its success.
The ants carry it back to the nest
where they feed it to the entire colony
and wipe out the nest.
Jim the Tinkerer says:
I do similar..but more watery.
I mix 2 grams Borax into
6 oz apple juice, and fill bottle caps,
tuck behind the washer, behind the fridge
and couch, etc. And I take care to keep
sinks dry of droplets for a week.
They go nuts for the cider, they all die.
Hi there Joyce ? try using Borax
1 tablespoon to 6 tablespoons of sugar dissolved in a very small amount of warm water, making sure that the mix looks like sugar crystals....
Place in the area where the ants are and make sure no children or pets/animals can come into contact with this as it is POISON ☠️ WASH YIUR HANDS AFTER USE
PLEAE USE NASK AS TO NOT BREATH IN VAPOURS
Good luck Tink
I save Parmesan cheese containers, mix up the borax recipe & cotton balls , put it in the containers & open the sprinkle side so the ants can go in. Then I put them around the house where ants are coming in
Borax powder (sodium tetraborate) is not particularly toxic... the LD50 (median lethal dose) is 3 g/kg in rats, not far off from table salt and grain alcohol. It's a mild irritant but only because it's rather alkaline, similar to baking soda. It's nice not to get a bunch on your skin, in your eyes, or in your lungs. But no great care's required. You can rest easy; borax is a pretty safe way to eliminate ants if you need to.
Don’t be silly. Borax is less toxic than salt. Do your research. Think more: it’ s free.
Borax is not poison at all. I have eaten it with no problem. It supplies boron to the body, which is needed. You can buy boron at the health food store or eat the borax mixed in water. Not sure where these old wives tails started about borax.
Trudy is correct. I have eaten Borax as well, but prefer to use it in a food soak. My cats also eat Borax. Boron helps strengthen our teeth and bones.
Anyway it does kill ants. Thanks for the information as I will also try cayenne pepper. I have several types of ants getting into things this summer.
Dry grits gets rid of fire ants just sprinkle some on each mound
I'm having some major issues with the tiny ants in my kitchen as well as in bedrooms at times. I have tried peppermint extract and realized it should have been oil instead. I previously used the ant baits from the store and they didn't work too well. I've had to throw away cereal because of ants being in it. Any recommendations for any and all homemade ant baits would greatly be appreciated.
The liquid Terro is relatively cheap (a couple dollars) and highly effective with those small sugar ants. Sometimes you'll hear sugars ants also referred to as 'odorous ants' because if you go and squish a bunch of them like we're all tempted to when we see tons on our counters, there's this weird odor that will waft thru the air out of their crushed corpses. But don't squish them because Terro is much more efficient and effective.
They'll gobble up the Terro and bring it back to the nest to share with their brethren. Terro is a sugar syrup and borax combo that is made at the perfect consistency to make sure they'll find it appetizing but have enough borax hidden within to wipe out their colony. Sugar ants only take a couple a days to eliminated with this method.
3/4" circle are usually big enough for the little ants to get their fill. I've fought 2 small ant infestations with just a quarter of a small bottle of Terro. Now I have carpenter ants (cry T.T) in my kitchen and they are finishing off the bottle and seem eager to eat the Terro too. They are getting larger circles because they consume much more with their big-ass bodies being probably 10xs the size of sugar ants. They are currently eating away at it in my cabinet; I'll need to wait and see how many days it takes for us to claim complete victory.
One other point... we seem to get ant problems right after a few good rains in spring. They'll come up into houses in search of higher ground. Once the hotter summer comes, they'll usually retreat back into the wilderness where it is cooler to build nests. So we usually just need to deal with them once per year around April or May in NE USA.
Thank you, Heather! Your comment was as hysterical as it was helpful. Thank you so much for the laughs! 🙂 Glad to know about the liquid Terro!
I just tried this borax sugar water mix. Oh my gosh, so far so good! So many came out to the cotton ball I decided to leave it overnight. Not one ant left or coming to cotton ball! Hoping the colony was wiped out!!
I need to try that! We have a crack in our slab & a few make their way thru the ceramic & laminate in the hallway. I've been using baby powder & while it works, it is very messy!
Great tip! Going to have to remember it in the spring. Since you already have the Borax, a half cup in the wash is great at getting that mildewy smell out of towels.
Only time I ever get ants is when the Peony season comes around . And they climb into anything in my cabinet that they can get into .Try to keep most package foods in plastic containers .maybe I should try Borax (O:
OMG! Thanks! I can't wait to try this next summer. Every year we have a ton and I spray and spray and nothing helps. I have to be careful what I use because of my cat too. I'm going to put the cotton balls out side too!
Thank you Rachel!!!I will be trying this down here,,,,as soon as I get some Borax.
I was wondering how it went. Feel better.....better yet, come to Florida to shake that flu!!! LOL
LOL Steve -- I'd be that annoying coughing person on the plane that everyone hates! 🙂
I actually just used straight Borax last year - I put a line of it on the top of my backsplash and it did the trick. In college I pul a line of borax up next to all the exterior walls of my apt. and got rid of cockroaches that way. Borax is the best!
do they take it back to the 'ant house' and it kills them? I get some coming in every year near a door but I also think some drop off a tree and come thru a skylight (really annoying having ants drop on your bed - especially when you're in it!) I am not going on the roof to put cotton balls up there, but if they take it 'home' I can try it on the floor.
Yes, I think that's what it is supposed to do. Worth a try! 🙂
ok, just made your mixture and put it under the sink, pantry, and bathtub. They seem to be coming up from under our house, Husband wants to "bomb" under the house but I told him to give this a try first!
ok, an hour later, ants are all over it, I'll post over the weekend to see if it has gotten rid of our little friends!
So did it work? Inquiring minds want to know... plus I just found teeny ants all over my art desk. 😛
Came home from dinner out to find that small ants had invaded our kitchen. Initially, I blamed my husband for not cleaning up remnants of snacks that were left where they fell. Then I sprinkled Borax on the ants and around the floor, especially near the walls, corners and in front of the sliding glass that leads to outside deck. Am I supposed to just leave the Borax there on the floor? If so, for how long? I just poured the Borax dry onto the floor. Is that correct? The ants seem to be walking on top of it with no effect. I did this 2 hours ago. Should I leave it there overnight? I did not add sugar, as I was afraid to make the problem worse. I did not wet the Borax. Is that still effective? Shopuld I clean up and reapply tomorrow?
I had a problem along the baseboards of my kitchen and an occasional spider, sprayed Ortho Home Defense I purchased from Home Depot, haven't spotted them in over a year.. The ants I mean, when I look up and see spider webs you know their infiltrating my space, it's time to spray again. Today as I was placing silverware in the drawer I noticed crumbs and decided to pull out my silverware tray and lifted lining and saw a couple. I would never think of spraying the Ortho inside my kitchen drawers, so I googled the topic. I'm reading this site now and glad I already have the Borax at home. I'm going to wipe them out with Lysol or Pine sol but adding the sugar worries me. I'm going too try it with the cotton balls and see what happens,
What does 1.5 c water in the borax recipe stand for along with 1-1/2 tbsp sugar and warm water and cotton ball?
One and a half cups of water.
Mac, My best approach. Do the sugar, water, borax combo, Soak a few little makeup remover rounds because they can be shaped to fit just about anywhere. Stand back and watch the stampede. The sugar and water are the bait and the borax is taken back to the hive and shared. I read that the borax mangles their insides. My ant problem is usually gone in hours or over night.. .
I used old medicine bottle tops. The ones I've had lately have a little hole on the sides so they are perfect. Last year I used the ones without holes and they worked great as well. I just put some out in the traffic areas today!!
Did this last night, sat and watched the ants going back anc forth. Hundreds of them. This morning about 30 will clean up with soap and water and her pads were, then in a couple of days put out again in case I had some lazy ones. I hate bugs. Problem was in bathroom
I did this today. I also watched hundreds of them move back and forth. But, they were carrying their eggs. They piled them up then thru all worked to take them away.
I have gotten rid of ants 5 other times using the Borax sugar solution. I have never seen them do this though. I let them carry on so they would carry it to the new nest.
Came home from dinner out to find that small ants had invaded our kitchen. Initially, I blamed my husband for not cleaning up remnants of snacks that were left where they fell. Then I sprinkled Borax on the ants and around the floor, especially near the walls, corners and in front of the sliding glass that leads to outside deck. Am I supposed to just leave the Borax there on the floor? If so, for how long? I just poured the Borax dry onto the floor. Is that correct? The ants seem to be walking on top of it with no effect. I did this 2 hours ago. Should I leave it there overnight? I did not add sugar, as I was afraid to make the problem worse. I did not wet the Borax. Is that still effective? Should I clean up and reapply tomorrow? I'd like to not use ant spray
From what I read here and other places, the trick is to put the Borax in a sugar paste. I mix about a Tbsp of Borax, Tbsp of sugar, and a few drops of water into a thick paste. Spread it on some pieces of cardboard (or something else the ants can easily climb on and put it in the trail. The ants will completely swarm the trap for a couple hours and then disappear. I think sugar & water are crucial. In my experience, it works really well & sometimes use the outdoor stakes in conjunction with it (some of those are made with Borax sol'n, too).
OK I tried the cotton ball mixture. I will post if it works! I have tried so many other remedy & no luck! I can't even water my plants cause the crawl all over my legs. Even my hands. Lucky the are not inside my house,just outside every where. Wish me luck!
Last night I had a parade of small ants in the camper......got out the borax, cotton balls and sugar.....this morning...nothing
Thanks for this I tried it with the sugar and they just went around it, I must have savory ants! So I used peanut butter and borax (2 spoonful's peanut butter to 1 of borax) smeared it in an old container with holes in the top for the safety of pets. Ants are now swarming it only 20 minutes later. Hopefully this will work!!
Please let us know how it worked, Janelle. Thanks!
It definitely works, and works great. I put cotton soaked borax (in little condiment cups with lids, and made holes for the ants to crawl in and out) one with sugar, one with peanut butter and one with honey, and my ants liked the honey mixture the best. Be careful not to use too strong a concentration of borax and sweetener. I found that if the borax is close to a 50/50 mix the ants start to leave it alone. So use less than 50% borax. The stronger the concentration, the faster it works but if they don't eat it, it won't work at all. I'm going to be trying a 25% borax mix to see how that works. I use a little hot water to blend the mix well and spread out the cotton ball in the condiment cup so the ants have more surface area to eat the mix.
Good Luck, God Bless!
Yeah, I think 20-25% borax is the perfect ratio so they love their lunch and are still physically able to feed the nest and spread the borax death.
It does make me a bit sad to think about ants succumbing to death via a gigantic inescapable fart stuck exploding within. Not a pleasant way to leave this life but... they are crawling all over my honey jar and invaded my baking cabinet! Please forgive me ants, RIP.
So glad that my guilt does not live alone! People have laughed at me for caring about the tortuous way that I have to kill these highly intelligent and compassionate creatures (they will welcome and care for any insect that smells like an ant even from outside their colony and they raise aphids for food without killing them). But when their hoards invade my territory the kinder methods haven't provided a lasting solution that will attack the Queen. Diatomaceous Earth kills quickly on contact as does Off Insect Repellent but when ants die the Queen just sends more. Peppermint and Lemongrass oils in a diffuser confuses their sense of smell which hides the trails but eventually they will find a way in somewhere else so I have been using a 3/1 mixture of powdered sugar to Borax. I have read that this will kill the larvae but adult ants can only consume liquids so I will use both. A least I only eat grass fed beef since Corn has the same effect on cattle as Borax does on ants because the cows stay out of my house!
Ants are just like super well-designed roomba vacuums....that self-repair and replicate like crazy. If you think of them like tiny machines (which they are), your conscience can rest easy. anything less intelligent than a fish is just a meat robot.
Correct. For some reason some ants are drawn to protein like food (peanut butter) while others go for sweet foods like sugar. Go figure? ? Peanut butter with borex should work though.
This is because ants forage for different things at different times depending upon the needs of the colony. Ever notice that sometimes ants will completely ignore water and other times they'll get into damn near every liquid available thats left out? Its because of that need for variety. Proteins, oils, sugar, water, ect. the need naturally changes. Its usually not hard to figure out what that have in their cross hairs when they're ransacking your home for goodies but the borax mixtures definitely work and are incredibly effective. Its not a cleanliness issue either although keeping the place hospital clean seriously helps but realistically, who the hell has time to clean 24-7? A cup of coffee with some sweetened creamer innocently left on a counter when you're rushing out the door for work or whatever can quickly turn into a stomach churning eyeful when you catch them looting your coffee cup several hrs later. lol
Thank you! I am doing this right now!
I made a mix of 2 tsp of 20 mule team borax to 1/4 cup og peanut butter. Heated up the peanut butter in the microwave til it liquified, mixed in the borax, 24 hours later there are a lot less ants. So far so good.
I just put the borax on the bed itself and within the next day or so there dead
I had the same problem. I tired the same exact recipe and no more carpenter and small red ants in 24 hours!!! Amazing recipe and dirt cheap.
One month ago I had major plumbing work done....I normally see a few ants here and there every spring/summer...I would put out ant traps and after few days or so no ants till next spring.....Not this year!! Two weeks or so after plumbing work was done, my house was INVAIDED by hundreds of the tiny black ants and tiny black flying ants! I sprayed ortho home defense.....three days later floor was covered in ants again...I found the borax solution online, mixed it up, put it in water bottle lids about every foot or so against they walls around my kitchen inside...I also did this outside around the whole house....within an hour of doing this the ants were swarming the bottle cap lids!!! DO NOT KILL THE ANTS!! The only way this will work to kill them and the colony, is to let them take it back to the nest for the rest of the colony (including the queen) to eat....For three days I would put out fresh bait (borax, sugar, water) each day I would see less and less ants. Its been about a week or so since I began my battle and have not seen even one ant!! Fingers crossed this has worked to keep my home ant free and has hopefully killed any colonies inside and outside my home. Thanks all for the tips! THANK YOU BORAX!!
I came home after being out of town for a week and my roommates and I have little black worker ants all over our kitchen cabinets. I took everything out and bleached it and it looks like they're coming from the crevice above the cabinets. I'm going to try putting the mixture in one of the cabinets and on the counter/floor. Fingers crossed! I'll post if it works or not!
9/9/2014: Just did this exact method last night. Scenario: 2nd story condo, ants appear to be coming from within the walls (not front door or windows), attracted to sugar and food, random "searching" ants found in closets, bathrooms, a few in the bed. Ants in the bed was the final straw - what was their purpose there? We have a well maintained property and made sure all foods in the cupboard were sealed. Raid Ant Traps did NOT work. They didn't care to go in them nor were they attracted to the bait inside. Finally, we tried Borax/Sugar method. I placed 6 little water bottle caps with Borax/Sugar-drenched-cottonballs in different areas of the house. THIS IS IMPORTANT: You have to be patient. The 4-5 "searching" ants immediately were drawn to the Borax/Sugar caps and within 10 minutes, each Borax/Sugar caps had 40-50 ants surrounding it with random trails forming around the house. DO NOT DISTURB THE TRAILS. I felt my skin crawl watching these ants feast on the soluble (hint: they will climb in and they are NOT drowning in the borax/sugar cottonball and liquid). Went to bed at 1030 pm, woke up at 630 am and OMG the trails of ants were gone... disappeared. In fact 3 of the 6 Borax/sugar caps had maybe 3-4 ants around them. This is what we've learned so far: 1) There is more than 1 colony based on the different trails and where we placed the Borax/Sugar caps. We learned that each colony will not share and you need to provide a Borax/sugar cap JUST for them. 2) BE patient. I'm saying this again. I saw trails forming that started from one end of the house to the other, but each trail was responsible for its own colony. Lastly, we set out new fresh Borax/Sugar caps this morning to make sure any remaining "searching" ants gets its fill -- remember, the little eggs/babies have yet to hatch. They too need to eat the solution AFTER they've hatched or you'll get a brand new colony ready to "search". After experiencing this, I have to educate everyone. I saw hundreds of ants and I never thought they'd leave. Trust that the ants are genetically programmed to do their duty which is to find food, eat it, and BRING IT BACK to the colony to share. GOOD LUCK Y'ALL! Hallelujah to Borax.
Wow that was a really analytical and helpful post. Thanks 🙂
I did this and yes, I see a swarm of ants.
I have a room in the basement and dunno where the ants are coming from but they swarm my carpet and bathroom; especially the sink and shower. And they swarm my toothpaste and soap.... Its GROSS.
My bro in law is an exterminator and he put ant bait traps and some sort of gel- this was last November of 2015. Its SEPTEMBER 2016 and they're STILL a problem.
The bait traps stained the carpet and I saw an army of ants swarming it tonight and freaked out!! My carpet is moving!! Should I wash the carpet?
I'm so annoyed!!
Thanks for that post! Very thorough. I was wonder if I did it right and your post helped.
@SoCalJayhawk, OMG I did this yesterday and I had never seen so many ants swarming around the lid filled with borax solution. It made my skin crawl but I just closed the closet door and let it go. This morning I looked in and the lid and the area around it was totally clean!! I mean there wasn't even a bit of stickiness on the lid! I thought my husband had cleaned the lid and put it back empty! I asked and of course he had not!! So I put some more borax solution in and will wait to see if there are more! So weird - even the dead ants around and in the lid were gone! It literally looked like someone had cleaned the area!
Worked like a charm!
Over 2 weeks now no ants in sight, this after months of constant nighttime raids by our shared enemy.
To those that come here for help, it works and works well....take time to read the whole article and comments, you will be happy with the results.
We placed our cotton balls by the stove and the surrounding counter space, overnight we had well over 100 ants going to town on them in the morning. Left them out till just afternoon, cleaned up the mess and let the stragglers go. We followed up by placing them on the outside wall behind the stove and by our trashcan in our driveway......this is where we hit pay dirt. I went to check them before nightfall and found 4 lines of ants 10' long pouring from a crack in our driveway, I moved the balls close to the source and laid out a few more....mid day next day......no more ants.
Rachel, Thank you so very much for sharing your knowledge and taking the time to get this out. 🙂
Don S
PS....helping our next door neighbor as I type, she is well on way to being ant free!
I've used poisons. I will not buy them anymore. There is no reason to. For ants More borax is Not better. Put a dab of sugar near the ants, put a dab of peanut butter near the ants, whatever they go for, use. It works & works Xlnt! If they avoid it, use less borax. Search for ants around your property. Put out baits. In a few days put out more. They will take it to nest & kill colony. Note this old house was treated for termites, before sale, a few mths later, I found termites. I treated the house with yes, borax. Why would anyone in their right mind pump 100 gals or more Of a Toxic poison in & around their home, when borax Does the job & Does it well. New Zealand has treated their lumber since 1953, and they don't have issues with termites. Save your $ for something that works & look up natural ways to kill termites. P.s. remove outlet & switch covers, dust inside the outlet with " Food Grade" Diatemaceous earth, replace covers & you'll never have to deal with it again.after that have a spoonful yourself & or feed it to your canine. These ways are as old as man, yet the so called modern world has the con built into the game. You can also use salt in the crawl space under a home for termites. The poisons not only hurt you and your wallet, they don't work as good. So do what you will, eat drugs to lower your cholesterol or simply enjoy some garlic in your meals. I prefer salt and garlic to poison. Bon a Petit"
I tracked the ants to where they were coming into the house and baited the area with peanut butter and maple syrup both mixed with Borax. The results are amazing!! I woke up today with no ants inside at all, even though i set a bait inside. When i checked to traps outside there was only 5.....literally 5 ants on the outside baits. Yesterday there had to be millions on the peanut butter baits but only 5 are there today!!! For 4.39$ this was the best money I've spent on pest removal ever.
We must have crazy ants - they are avoiding the cotton balls!
we have ants that look just like the ones pictured. we have had them year after year. i actually used an ant killer liquid meant for outdoor use one year because they were actually squeezing themselves through the gaskets and into the dishwasher even though it was closed tight and had no gaps. they were so numerous i had to run the rinse cycle to keep the numbers down when we didn't dirty enough dishes for a full load regularly. our ants are not attracted to sugar though and the bait in the ant traps also do not appeal. these seem to like animal fats & proteins, any tiny bit of juice or grease from cooked meats attracts them. i'm going to try mixing borax with a little chicken fat or tallow drained from ground beef and see if that does the trick.
I'm trying some 50-50 borax and peanut butter mix bait on those hard-to-kill-with-anything-practical tiny ants. They are really, really hardy(bleach did not stop them for long), as many of the things that work on fire ants do not against them.
This does work, though, as a strong deterrent: Cayenne pepper powder. Just put it wherever you see them and where they are coming in in that area. They'll walk right through it for about 2-3 days, then they'll gone from the area just as long as the opening has cayenne powder on it. It will not kill them, so they might find another way in.
Hopefully, the 50-50 PB to Borax bait works. If it does, then I'll save the page so I know how to get back(sometimes, baits take a while and it might no longer be in history).
Try mixing boraxo with peanut butter..works good for protien seeking ants.
OK folks I've gone through this a few times now in my kitchen, here is what worked for me...
Found out that there are many different kinds of ants that eat different things. I used a mason jar lid to put the mixture on.
Almost a year ago I had ants that liked cornmeal. Take a jar and mix it 50/50 Cornmeal and Borax with water. Put some on a mason jar lid. They can easily climb it, replace the mixture on the lid every morning and evening with the paste. When it dries smash it so it’s not stuck together and small enough so the ants can carry it away. Put the lid on the jar and keep using the same mixture.
Almost a year later ants again. I figured no problem I'll give them cornmeal. They didn't want cornmeal at all! I tried all kinds of combinations with sugar. First my borax, sugar and water was too strong and they wouldn't eat it. Then it was too weak they loved it but weren't dying. Here it the combo that killed the whole colony them in 2 1/2 days. Again I used a mason jar lid to put the mixture on.
2 teaspoons Sugar, ½ teaspoon Borax (mix well), ½ teaspoon Water and mix until it looks like syrup consistency. They love it. It's actually a 4:1 mixture of sugar to borax with water.
I replaced it with new mixture every 6-8 hours and picked up the old lids with the ants on them eating, put them in a bag and threw it away. Yes you let them eat and take it back to the colony but there were so many there was plenty ants left to take it back. If they line up all the way around your mixture put out two lids. The second day you will only need one lid.
I though I'd share because this was a nightmare until I finally got it right. Bottom line you have to find out what they want to eat. If you make it too strong it does no good if they won't eat it. I tried all of the Ant Gel on the market and they didn't want any of it. They loved my mixture though and it killed them.
Very thorough post Nancy, much appreciated. I'm in Western Australia, so this advice may not be relevant to the US. You are on the money - different ants like different tuck, and it takes patient experimentation before you find a combination that works. I use the sugar mix, but add a beef stock cube for the protein seekers. Seems to work well. Cheers from Margaret River
Ok I tried the borax and sugar 50/50 weeks ago and they are not going for it. Now I think it's because there isn't water mixed up too? I don't know and I just put it on a butter lid under the sink stove and fridge? They are swarming in the dishwasher still so I will try water too...but what am I doing wrong? I have a cat so I can't have it in the open...
Yes, you need to mix water up with it too. I soaked this mixture with a cotton ball and put some Nutella on top for good measure and the ants loved it. This attracted the fire ants and some other species of tiny brown ant, although I'm not sure what kind of ants you have.
I tried this method at my parent's house and my girlfriend's parent's house this holiday break, both of whom were having fire ant problems. It worked both times within 8 hours. I've only seen 1 or 2 forager ants since the ants swarmed the cotton balls and were killed off.
My parents have cats, so I tried to keep the door closed in the rooms where I placed them. I also put paper plates over some of the cotton balls to keep the cats from being interested in what was underneath. Some were left out in the open, but the cats did not seem interested whatsoever. Your cats may be more curious, however. Someone mentioned putting in it a plastic Tuppeware container and cutting holes in it for the ants to get in, but not so large that pets could get in contact with the borax. I hope this helps. Good luck to you!
My cat doesn't mess with mine, i have friend with a dog i hope her dog leaves it alone. Im sure the PNB would a track the dog.
thanks Im going to try this
Since the borax is toxic to pets I put the cotton balls in a small plastic container with a lid. Poke holes in the side of the container so the ants can get inside. It works and you don't need to worry about your pets
Thank You was trying to figure out how to do this with pets. I have cats and my mom has a dog.
My dog would eat the cup...perhaps a small glass jar & put holes in the lid.
Worked like a charm! Thanks for sharing
Thank you! I just found ants in the cat food this morning.
It looks like I am the only one for who BoroX doesn't seems to work. 🙁 I am not sure what kind of ants I have. It maybe regular ants. They keep coming in my bathroom on the second floor and nowhere else. Don't know why. They circle around the sink. I sprinkled Borox on the window seal but they walk right through it and nothing happens to them. They kept coming. Not too many at the same time, about 5-6.
At my old place I had a couple of different kinds of ants - or at least they looked different to me. The borax worked for what I would call "sugar ants" but didn't work for anything else. I went heavy duty with this:
http://www.terro.com/terro-liquid-ant-killer
It did the job, but I was super careful where I put it.
I use Diatomaceous Earth which is crushed fossilized skeletons of diatoms/algae. It may take awhile, but is safe for pets and kids.
okay would any of this help to get rid of skunks?! We have someone living under our porch so this got me thinking.... perhaps not a good idea to have a dead skunk under my porch either though 🙁 Any other ideas from you guys?? Thanks!!
To get rid of skunks under the porch, soak a roll of toilet paper in ammonia and stuff the toilet paper as far back into the opening as possible using a broom. Skunks don't like the smell of ammonia and will leave to move on to sweeter smelling accommodations.
In stead of water can you use beer
Trying this exact recipe with my ants today. I have hoards of them in every room of the house.
I set out the cottonballs about noon. One in a cupboard where I've seen lines of ants, one in the windowsill above my backsplash, and one in a corner of my kitchen counter. Another went next to the trash can, one went in the living room near where I have seen another ant line, and the last went into the bathroom.
I checked the cottonballs at 4pm and they were each covered with swarms of ants with the exception of the one in the living room and the one by the trashcan.
It is 10:30pm and I just checked each place again. There are no ants to be seen on the cotton balls. I saw 3 straggler ants in the kitchen, though, so I will leave the cotton out overnight. I'll post another update tomorrow.
Lisa, what is the sugar/borax ratio you used?
I used the exact recipe as above...1/2c sugar to 1.5 tbsp. It's been 3 days. No ants the last two days. Last night i saw 3 in the kitchen, so i set out some more of the liquid in a plastic milk cap. No ants today. I assume when the current batch of eggs hatch I'll need to do another treatment.
Did it really work? I have used everyrhingi can think of and nothing gets rid of them.
It worked for me. Almost a month later and i haven't seen a single ant in over 2 weeks.
In the house I fill a spray bottle with white vinegar and sprayed the ants and where they were coming in, vinegar won't hurt my pups and kills them..white vinegar is safe and doesn't leave any order...but it's only a temporary solution... I mix a cup of sugar, 1/3 cup of borax, using a fork to stir added about a 1/3 cup of water stir to gooey consistency then stir in maple syrup...I used the imitation kind not the real stuff..if it's to runny add more borax and sugar to thicken it up. Used a box cutter on some plastic containers to make them about an inch or less and punched holes about 2 inches apart close to the bottom for easy ant access...put a glob of goo in the container and set them outside of the house where they were coming in...in about 3 or 4 hours they were covered with ants REALLY going to town...we haven't seen ANY ants in the last 48 hours...
I read that ants and roaches, termites, etc., "wear" their skeletons on the outside (called "exoskeletons"), and when they crawl through the borax (or make contact with it), their exoskeleton is destroyed, thus destroying the pest!
That said, I am highly annoyed to find ants in my car! I don't know what they are after, because I don't eat or drink in my car (except for ice water), and I don't carry snacks (except from the grocery store to home). I don't know how easy it would be to use the borax/sugar/water solution in or around the car, but if anyone has a suggestion, I would appreciate it!
This works! I used the recipe above, but also added a little Nutella (mixed with Borax) on top of the cotton balls because I thought it couldn't hurt. Fire ants were all over the carpet in my office and had spread to the bathroom, searching for food. I didn't have a problem with ants at all until the apartment sprayed for bugs! Coincidence? Anyway, I was reluctant to use any toxic chemicals and had used borax/boric acid years ago to get rid of roaches, and it worked wonderfully, but never thought about how to use it for ants.
Luckily, I found this article. I set out the cotton balls near where the majority of the ants were appearing, but also dusted borax on the carpet and on the bathroom floor. Within minutes, ants swarmed the cotton balls and formed a line leading mysteriously under the carpet and back to wherever their nest is. I went to bed, woke up this morning. I saw only two ants. Now it's the evening and I see NONE at all. I set out new cotton balls to attract any stragglers, but there do not seem to be any left! It's like magic. It's important to kill the queen to keep the colony from repopulating, which I am hoping is what happened...
Thank you for this article. This really worked! Better than any Raid or anything I've ever tried and not nearly as toxic. No more getting attacked by fire ants just walking to the bathroom!
Thank you, this worked great for me! Second floor condo unit. Ants came into the kitchen from under the sink, I think through an opening in the dry wall for the water pipe. I used the exact recipe posted and placed several cotton balls on the kitchen counter. The black ants immediately went for the cotton balls and surrounded them. The hard part is letting the ants feed and not squishing them -be patient with this! I left the cotton balls on the counter overnight for about 8 hours, and in the morning all the ants were gone except one lone straggler on the floor. No new ants since that night. I have leftover Borax liquid stored in a jar to use if the ants do come back.
Yes . ! It really works. Much better than the raid baits! When we moved into the house I noticed any baits in the bathroom. Well we had ants everywhere! Bedrooms,bathroom ,kitchen and living room. The baits were not even working. Maybe a day or so and then they would be back. It was disgusting. Well my husband found the borax tip on line. It worked! Not one ant has been seen since.
I live in an apartment and have had my manager come and spray the apartment. They were gone for awhile and then they came back. I found this link online and decided to give it a try. Right now the ants are feasting on the cotton ball...there are MANYYYYYY in there and I'm not killing them. I hope they will take that stuff back to the QUEEN and BYE BYE!! Hopefully there will be NONE there in the morning.
Can we be sure that this Borax strategy isn't being promoted by the company that makes Borax?
Well, this ant bait product says it contains borax:
http://www.terro.com/terro-liquid-ant-baits-2-pack
yes...it is an old method and it does work...the results are often amazing!
What happens if the cotton ball dries before the ants really get to it?
Thanks.
I have a small pet syringe ( no needle) and just fill it with the sugar borax solution and each day re-moisten them. Usually just needs one follow-up the next day and they are gone.
Trying this 'recipe' today. Had no ants all summer and then woke yesterday to gazillions of the teeny black ones absolutely everywhere. EVERY. WHERE. THousands. The borax amount in the recipe is small....hoping it works though!
It does seem to be working. Is so gross watching them I want to kill them but know I cannot. Anyway, down to couple of ants left poking around. I will try one more feeding.
Tip ONE, the ants were attracted to some washed out Chinese Take-Out containers that I had stored in my cabinets. Always throw plastic Chinese containers away.
Tip TWO, this gave me an idea. In addition to the original recipe, add one packet of common Chinese Duck Sauce that one gets from the take-out. My ants are love Duck Sauce..
I mixed sugar and Borax and placed it where I seen ants. The ants have been all over the piles for about 4 days and they are still coming. I am going out of my mind with these ants! When will this stuff work?
Maybe try Optigard Ant Gel Bait Insecticide?
http://www.syngentapmp.com/product/optigard-ant-gel-bait-insecticide?tab=overview
Did you mix sugar and borax in warm water?
I know this is an old post, but maybe someone will still read this? Everywhere I read is that either Borax works great, or they aren't attracted to it at all. I can't find anywhere where they are attracted to it (mine are grease ants) and they come by the hundreds. However, we are into week 3 already, and they are STILL coming!! I don't know if the ant colony is just really really really large or there's more than one... or if the Borax simply isn't killing them!? Has anyone else had this problem? The first week we used some random food mixed with honey and borax. It attracted them, but they still kept coming, so we followed a recipe we found online of 2 T. honey, 2 T. peanut butter & 1/2 tsp. Borax, but they still were coming, so the next week we doubled the borax.... and still they keep coming...and coming....and coming....!
I'm reading this old post because I'm now in the process of trying this method. Still in week #1, but have also noticed that they keep coming. I increased the boric acid content of the bait, but they still keep coming.
It took 2 days for the ants to finally find one of the cotton ball baits (they chose the furthest one, even though there were a few along their trail. Who knows why.)
Anyway, one night I saw a couple dozen of them on one cotton ball drinking away! Watched them all go back to their nest behind one of the kitchen cupboards. Next morning there was maybe one or two, and then a few throughout the day. Definitely fewer. Then, last night - another swarm! Maybe not as big as the first, but still a lot. This morning there are a few still milling around, drinking the poison.
So, why are they still coming?? Did the queen survive? Is there more than one queen? Do I need to continue treatment until all the eggs hatch and cycle through the sugar baits? Frustrating!
Update for those who may be interested:
Day after I wrote the above post, small worker ants were fewer, but still foraging and drinking the bait. Suddenly, I noticed one ant at a bait station that looked different - bigger overall, and with a much larger abdomen. Looked like the queen might have left the nest looking to establish a new colony elsewhere.
Since the queen's death, there have only been a few stragglers, and today - I'm happy to report - there hasn't been even one ant in sight. Going to keep the baits for awhile because there may still be eggs hatching. Hoping that after that generation dies there will be no more ants!
Pretty sure they are Pharaoh ants, which can have multiple queens, apparently. Fingers crossed that the queen I saw was the only one in my particular colony.
Any suggestions on getting rid of med. size black ants? I have tried Terro, Borax with sugar and Borax with peanut butter. They are not interested! They are running around my kitchen like maniacs. We sprinkled Ant and Roach powder around the foundation and also sprayed the foundation with mint. Our yard is full of a variety of different ants. We've been in this house 45 years, and nothing is different. Yikes!!!!!!
Go outside, and try to figure out where they are entering your house. When you are able to find the entrance, pour lots of vinegar down there. I used to use this trick when I lived in a first floor apartment, and it got rid of the ants. You have to make sure though that you have found their colony though.
Have you tried tea tree oil and vinegar?
Very Helpful article. Couple of questions: Does the sugar Borax cotton ball baits work on the BIG Black Carpenter Ants? Also since this stuff is toxic to cats, would I be safe in placing the baits inside a jar with holes ?( outdoor use) SZ
Very helpful ideas. I have seen a couple of ants in my kitchen today so will buy some Borax and try this before I end up with many more. So glad I saw this site on Facebook.
I just recently found out about this borax trick to rid my home of ants. I have used everything from sprays to granules under my house to stop them invading. I just went an got a box of borax just to come home an find out I was out of sugar lol I did have powdered nesquik so I made the recipe the same, but just substituted the nesquik for sugar. The trail of ants went right for it. So heres hoping it works! Thanks for the tip! Can't wait to see if it works! ?
My little ants didn't want the Terro. I mixed up peanut butter and borax 2:1, first melting the PB and then adding the Borax. I keep the mixture in a covered bowl and set out little papers with the mixture. The ants love it, but well over a week later there are still 50 or so ants swarming my baits. I've put out many fresh baits and they love it. But they aren't going away. I'm at my wits end.
We were overrun with ants this spring, so I mixed up all of the borax varieties and used Terro. At first they wouldn't touch the Terro, then they went crazy over it. We just kept putting it and the borax varieties out for weeks until no more ants arrived and have not seen an ant since. We even put it outside in covered containers. We have lived here over 45 yrs., and have never been invaded by ants like this year. We had all different kinds too! Be persistent with whatever they like to eat and don't kill any of them so they can take it back to the nest and hopefully it will work for you.
Thank you so much. We have them coming into our kitchen windowsill though a crack at the mitred corner of trim. I think they must have a nest in the wall. Our kitchen is high up from the ground. They are also coming into our living room from underneath the baseboard. So I've got lots of baits out. I will keep at it. I'm so shocked at how they just keep coming.
Update: I continued putting out peanut butter and borax. Every time the numbers declined I thought great, it’s killing them off. Let me put out more bait to prove they are gone. Every time I put out more bait they would swarm it in huge numbers. Finally I just stopped putting out bait and they went away. As long as I put out bait they kept coming. It was insane.
When ants invaded my worm farm & started stealing the worm eggs I mixed borax in honey, smeared it on little squares of thin cardboard, placed several along their trail, & later noticed the ants abandoned the worm farm for the bait. They really went for it; there were so many they scoured the honey/borax trays clean! Worms survived. Ants disappeared & never came back.
I used this method 3 years ago . The ants were every where even was coming out of power points . was near new house 2 years old After many bottles of ant rid & ant rid bates even email the company that makes it she sent me 6 bottles of it yes the ants were eating it but just coming back for more did not work . So read this trick on face book . Thought worth a try . Well the thing is since then I have not seen an ant in the house .
My experience with the ants last year was so bizarre. I had to use borax and peanut butter which attracted them in droves. After putting out the baits for weeks I noticed that as the bait was eaten the ants were dwindling. So I would put out more baits to test if they were really dead. But more ants just kept coming. As long as I put out bait I got new (lots) of ants. Finally after about 5-6 weeks I completely stopped refilling the baits and the ants stopped coming. I don’t know if it was killing them or not. Maybe it was attracting one new colony after another. I still need to seal the crack around my windowsill.
What would I use instead of the sugar? My ants are grease ants. And, they hibernate during the winter!!!
Mixed up a batch and put drops on a piece of parchment paper...less mess and easy for the ants to get to.
It does work but only on the little ants. The big monster one's like the traps - so I have both.
I used your cotton ball sugar & borax recipe about 3 weeks ago and those pesky little black ants on my kitchen counter were gone in just a couple of hours. It DOES work! Thank you!
Thank you so much for this suggestion. We weren't sure how to get rid of these little ants each spring. They can smell sugar from a mile away. This totally worked within 36 hours or less
I use this mixture every spring and it WORKS every spring. I put it on window seals, at each door, in every corner of my kitchen and under each appliance. Most always, I only have to use one round of it; otherwise, I may have to do it again in late fall. Spray Ant Killers do not work.
Can you use powdered sugar in place of regular sugar? I made cookies and used up all my sugar but I still have the powdered sugar left. Would this work as well?
I am going to try this, too. I live in a house where it is easy to close off parts of it so my dog can't get to the baits. I've also smeared the legs of my furniture with Vaseline to keep the little critters from climbing up there.
I have tiny red ants. I think they're attracted to sugar? So far, I have a white Raid ant trap, a Terro liquid ant trap, and two cotton balls with the borax/sugar water mixture. They seem interested in everything, but it's been 24 hours (at least) and they're still here. Can I add more borax? Or will they taste it and avoid the cotton balls then?
As long as they are eating the bait, it's a good sign. Last year we had hundreds of ants and when I put out the bait they ate it and I put out new bait until no ants showed up. You need them to take the bait back to the nest and share it to get rid of them. It's kind of scary when you see so many of them eating the bait.
Thanks for your reply Mandy! It's so hard to wait for them to stop coming back. It seems like the black ones die more quickly than these tiny red ones. I cleaned all the counters with soapy water and then vinegar yesterday, except the little area where they are, right against the wall. I think that's preventing them from traveling any further into the kitchen, which is a relief!
Just to follow up---the borax-sugar-water cotton balls worked for me. I had to give it time (2-3 days) and be sure to remove anything they might eat instead, like an almost empty cookie bag or crumbs. It's been about a week and no ants have returned.
I placed the cotton balls right on the counter (wrung out a little so not too messy) but you could also set them on a piece of wax paper or a jar lid.
Whenever I see ants, I put out two baits... I make a mix of borax, peanut butter and parmesan cheese. All meat ants love that mix - hubby calls it "the heavenly hand grenade". Then I make a paste of borax, sugar, a few drops of water - he calls that "death blossom" (Yes!, to all the Last Starfighter fans).
Funnily enough, it works the same way - ants are gone within 12-24 hrs. They take their preference, or often both.
do NOT do this. Made up a large batch exactly as prescribed here but also other batches with varying levels of these 3 ingredients.
What do you GET? a pasty mess that dries into a ROCK-hardened pile almost immediately. They cannot EAT it as it's then a solid. And MESS I might add.
There needs to be something added to keep this fluid (surely what terro uses in traps so they stay fluid) as ANTS CANNOT & will NOT be attracted to a solid that is ROCK HARD & total waste.
Trust me, I've now tried this ALL over the place & followed directions precisely.
Plus this should also be noted, even WHEN liquid, they went NO WHERE near it yet swarmed the terro baits so this isn't effective even BEFORE it dries up into a rock (which is less than an hour).
WHAT horrible advice, truly. And I'm very irritated.
I tried this and it worked like a charm! I left the cotton balls on my countertops and the ants were loving it. The next morning when I checked on the cotton balls, all of the ants were gone and they have not returned!!
I originally learned of this kind of DIY ant bait from a local newspaper column in 2002, but using boric acid instead of borax. Boric acid powder can be obtained from pharmacies in the United States, but one may have to request it, as our so-called "drug stores" no longer stock many traditional remedies. On the other hand, Twenty Mule Team Borax is readily available in supermarkets and hardware stores. Instead of soaking cotton balls with the solution, I place it in shallow bait dishes cut from the bottom half-inch of aluminum beverage cans. It typically takes three to four days to wipe out a nest of the tiny Argentine ants, so one needs to be patient, refilling the bait dishes repeatedly until the ants stop coming. Having the bait in liquid form is beneficial, as ants often invade kitchens and bathrooms in search of water, particularly during hot, dry weather.
Thanks so much, Rachel! I was dealing with fire ants (which like meat) so I used some chicken bouillon in place of the sugar. This seems to be working great! I have a small dog, so I only placed these in windowsills she can't reach.
I used the peanut butter recipe for the "microscopic" ants and they loved it They turned the PB into peanut powder!!
Put the cotton balls in childproof pill bottles with 1/8 inch holes drilled into the lid. Still keep them out of reach of our toddler and dogs.
Day 1 - frenzy of ants.
Day 2 - 3 or 4 moving slow
Day 3 - tons of ants again?!
Day 4 - half a dozen slow moving.
Day 5 - Lots and lots of ants!
Day 6 - 2 or 3 slow ants.
This pattern continued for almost 2 full weeks. Then they were all gone. My best guess is these waves of ants were separate colonies. 3 months and they haven't been back!
I made the mixture and left it out in a cup with holes. Didn’t really see anything the first day. I came home, and they have swarmed it. But seems they are sucking on it and not really moving. They are in the counter, I wouldnt even know where they would be entering, but must be going down the crack between stove and counter. I just want them gone.
I used a recipe that called for 3 cups of water, 4 tablespoons of borax 1 cup of sugar. Dip a piece of bread in it and put it on the counter. The ants are all over it, I was hoping they would just keel over upon eating it, but I guess it takes times because it's been a few hours and I see no corpses yet.
Ants are everywhere except for the bait. Hello hoax.
What kind of ants do you have? What did you use to make the bait?
It's definitely not a hoax. It worked for me. It stills works when I need to set more traps when the ants come back a couple of times a year. What is the motivation for this post being a hoax? I just don't get it.
So grateful to have found this! Have seen a couple of ants here and there but, of course, knew there was a problem. Well, this morning, the cat had barfed near the dishwasher I don't use and all those little black specks turned out to be tiny pantry ants. UGH! So, I mixed up the solution, as directed, did the cotton balls and put a couple down there and one under the bottom drawer adjacent. Well, they're loving it. THE hardest part is not killing them where they are but I'm holding firm, only squished a couple of stragglers. Fortunately, the cats are old and asleep in the living room. Will take it all up and clean it when they come looking for their food, then re-deploy after they snooze off again. Thank you so much, this really does seem to be working! Read every comment and really appreciate them, even copied and pasted one really long one into an email for future reference. 🙂
Oh yes this really works, I had a few stragglers and after putting out the soaked cotton balls I think the whole colony appeared to feast, as of this morning most of them have returned to the colony and hope the queen has welcomed them back home😋. Thanks so much for this recipe.
Yes it works instead of using Crystal sugar I mix The Borax with powdered sugar I gave them the water paste and the dry ingredients they were attracted had a party only found 13 dead ants in one pile that was liquid went into the kitchen the next morning there was not one live ant walking around on my counter I was excited
Thank you so much for this! It really worked for me!
Here we go again.
Here we go again..
I’ve had a lot of success with this recipe in the past. I recommend putting the soaked cotton balls in a little jar lid & rehydrating the cotton ball periodically. Awesome to watch the ants swarm the cotton balls and even better yet when you no longer see any more ants around 😊
I had medium sized ants all around the house. Tried the borax solution on one section of the yard and after 2 weeks I've noticed that all the ants are now gone. I can't find any in my yard anywhere. I can only assume that the one treatment got the queen.
Did ABSOLUTELY nothing!!!! I think they actually THRIVED off of it. Now I have MORE ants than before
I used a mixture of 44ml of pancake syrup with about 10 ml of borax. The ants on the outside of my car went to 3 baits I put out. They really liked the syrup and the next day I didn't see any more ants. The next day no ants as well. I think honey or syrup is better than sugar and water because they have a strong odor. I recomend 3 parts syrup to a little less than 1 part borax. I had ants for almost 2 years until I did this. So far, so good.
Borax is the best thing to get rid of ants, it truly kills an entire colony and so quickly too! I either mix it with sugar or with honey, whatever I have on hand, but both ways work amazingly!
i have a question I have tiny black little ants on my kitchen counter top. and there mainly like behind my kitchen sink and they run along the back of the counter top and wall. I cant see where there coming from at all. I have even looked along the floor by the wall .and nothing. so would this borax stuff work to kill the ants. please let me now thanks.
This works! Thank goodness! I followed the sugar/borax/water recipe above and it did take a day and a half, but there are no ants today! I will say you should let it sit even though it's so gross to watch all the ants feeding, but they need to bring it back to the nest. With Covid 19, my bug service will not come inside for a month so I am so thankful for this home remedy. Worked great, thank you!!
So yeah, I posted a comment a few days ago that the ants were gone, but now they're back with a vengeance. They must have told every ant colony in my neighborhood to come and check out the sweets. I have moved onto Terro with the same results. Vinegar is not deterring them at all and I am now going to try Raid. This is terrible!!
You need to keep feeding them so they take the food back to the colony, which kills the rest of the ants. The action will slow down and soon disappear. Keep putting out more poison until they don't show up anymore.
Yeah I did that for a week. It really didn't slow down and I haven't seen any since I sprayed Raid, but thanks!
What do you do with the leftover concoction? Am I able to store it?
This is a lovely informative post. I can't believe people commented negativity. Thank you for sharing.
Our ants are crazy about honey, I’ll try mix it with borax. Also in my childhood people used egg yolk ( boiled) and borax, it was very effective. Maybe you should try that for protein lovers ants.
I treated the massive amount of bathroom ants with a mix of 3/4 cup maple syrup and 1/4 cup borax heated in microwave to blend the 2 ingredients. Then I poured it into a plastic ant tray I had. (A plastic lid would work).
The ants only appeared at night and there’ were hundreds! The next night I refreshed the Mixture since no ants were eating the bait but did not attract any. So, will keep checking nightly. Hope it worked? Any advice helps.
Is this recipe supposed to be like a water constancy? I made it and it looks like water not paste? I soaked cotton balls and placed them on small paper plates in the area of the tiny ants
Hope this works 😊
Thanks
I had a left over biscuit, so I mixed just borax and water, then I let the biscuit crumbs soak in the solution, let them dry off a little bit then I placed the borax where ants had been coming in. They fell for it. No more ants c:
Does teh Borax and sugar work on carpenter ants? I have never seen them around my property before but they are now galloping on my deck. We will inspect it underneath, tomorrow. In the meantime, I would like to know if these recipes work for carpenter ants.
Will ants continue to eat the sugar-borax mixture after it hardens?
I used a little less water. The mixture was a little thicker than syrup. I poured the syrup on strips of cardboard and placed them near the ants. It worked great. I had to repeat every year. This year, however, I had no ants at all. Maybe I finally wore them down to extinction!
Have tried the borax and sugar recipe. They walked around it. Then tried sugar, honey and borax. Same thing. Left it for several days. These are regular small brown ants. Being overrun. Any ideas?
How long will this mixture last? I made some and didn’t use all of it. I put it in he fridge since it had sugar. How long will the rest of it last?
I used a slightly modified version of the Borax/Sugar/water fomula: since most anything sweet will do as the vehicle for the borax - I used some leftover red sweet & sour? sauce from our favorite chinese restaurant, then mixed about 1/3 of that volume with borax (20 Mule Team). It didn't take the ants but maybe 15 - 20 minutes and they had a congregation that would make any preacher proud! I am waiting to see how long it will take to decrease their numbers. Thanks for the post - I absolutely HATE ants!
This is basically what Terro liquid ant bait is but way cheaper. I would forget about the cotton balks (opt o add let towel and they would stick to the counter so I started using soda caps of just the liquid and the ants went to town. I could refill the caps or throw them out when the liquid solidified.
Forgive me if this has already been asked and answered but I'm in the middle of an ant assault and need to do something quickly. HOW do the ants CARRY the borax back to their nests if it's been dissolved in warm water with the sugar? Can I just put out a small dish with dry borax and sugar?
Not about Borax but I finally found my solution to our horrific mass ant invasion that happens all year especially after a rainfall. I live in an area of the Northwest that is notorious for them and they get into every room of the house even the beds. Doesn't kill them (which sends a message out from the Queen for reinforcements) but emptied a wall under my window that was blackened with Ants in 10 minutes. Later I saw a couple come back so I repeated the process and now they are all just gone. I left a spray under the window for a few days after I shut off the humidifier just in case. By the way when you remove ants from your property Crows will leave with them. The solution was to add a little bit of essential Peppermint (Mentha Peperita) oil to a humidifier. The smell was very light and pleasant for me but Ants absolutely cannot tolerate the scent of spearmint.
Borax and icing sugar work very well indeed. The areaoutside my kitchen door was covered in anthills. I mixed the borax and icing sugar together and sprinkled the dry powder around the holes in the middle of the mounds and within a week or so there were no more mounds and no more ants !!!!
This was amazing. Before we left for holidays on Monday I cleaned up the food in our daughter's room and put out some dollar store traps, hoping that the ants would be gone when we came home Friday night. Nope! They simply moved to the bathroom. It was disgusting. Hundreds of ants. I put out the soaked cotton pads ( I couldn't find cotton balls) at 11 at night. By morning the ants were practically gone. Only a few stragglers left wandering around the entry point. I only used half of the solution and I put out a ton of pads. Thank you!!!!
This worked amazingly well! I have fought ghost ants for over a year. Terro stopped working, and expensive gel wouldn’t work. I soaked the areas they were in with Raid. Once it dried they came right back. This recipe literally killed them in under 24 hours! Our house has been ghost ant free for over a week! Thanks for sharing!!
Thank you Thank you Thank you for posting this
We were at witts end with ants until i read your post
overnight the ants disappeared with such a simple solution
You are appreciated beyond words
Thank you
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For fire ants, wasps and ground hornets outside. Use dishwashing liquid soap and warm water. Wipes them out instantly. Larger mounds need larger loads. For wasps and hornets get them at night when they are all in the nests...
After I began seeing ants invading my kitchen and tried several commercial products without success I became desperate and began looking online for a solution. I tried vinegar and a few other suggestions, one being cinnamon oil, which I mixed in a spray bottle and sprayed it in every crack, again with no success, I tried borax and sugar water. I put cotton balls along the edges of my counters. The ants swarmed these and I thought to myself I sure hoped it was effective because I'd otherwise have a bigger ant problem. By the morning I saw a ton of dead ants and to my surprise no new ones. I cleaned the counters and was so excited to not have any new infestation quickly . The following Spring when ants tried to return I again used the same recipe and had equally exciting results. RThis is my go to solution and the best alternative by far!!!
I put my cotton balls soaked in the sugar borax mixture in a cardboard or plastic container with holes poked in it, so that other creatures do not eat it by mistake
When I lived Florida, borax was used to get rid of roaches. Put a few drops of something like honey in the middle of a small plate and surround it with borax powder. The honey makes the borax stick to the roaches. When they get back home and clean themselves (apparently roaches are very clean at home), they ingest the borax and that does them in.
I have several ant hills outside, one is really huge and is near the house, the others aren't. The problem is with my neighbor's dogs, they let them run loose yet have complained to my daughter about the ant hill. If I do anything to poison those ants and something happens to those dogs they will sue me.
I have 2 different kinds of ants coming in the house now, tiny tiny black ones and normal sized black ones like the ones in the hills. I also have an older cat so I need to be careful inside.
When we started having ant problems years ago, we purchased the name brand ant killers. They reduced the number of ants, but the ants were never gone. Then we went to a “Do it yourself” professional pest control store and they sold me a bottle of ant killer for $70.00! A week later, a small amount of ants were still there. I went on the internet and made a batch of the borax, sugar water recipe and the ants were gone in 2 days. We haven’t seen ants in the house for years. We put the mixture around the exterior house foundation every so often and there is never a problem.
very effective. took 3 days but all ants gone.
Let me know if you have any better ideas to kill ants.
I tried it all around the kitchen, but the cotton balls dried out quickly. I drip some water on them each day to re-moisten them, but I wonder if borax loses it's strength each time I add the drops of water. Ants are still coming onto the cotton balls 1 week later, but are they just eating the sugar now? Has the borax lost its effectiveness? Anyone know??
The ants don't seem to be carrying anything back to the nest. Am I missing something?
I tried it and it worked. By the third day they were gone. The first day the counter was covered with them, they were coming out from behind the stove, but I left them alone and it was just amazing. I got tired of spending $65.00 a month for pest control strictly for ants. Even paying that in the winter months when the ants are dormant.
Just tried this and it really works. There was a whole colony in my cabinets and now they are gone. They took the borax sugar to colony n they’re all dead.
SN: I used paper towels first cause I was out of cotton balls. It didn’t work at all. The cottonballs worked like a charm,
How do you store any leftover borax solution or do you need to discard it? Can it be refrigerated?
I put a lid of the borax solution down yesterday in a closet where I had seen a couple of ants. Later in the day there were swarms of ants around the lid and several dead inside the lid and there was still borax mixture in the lid. (frosting can lid). Today I looked and the spot where they had been was totally clean. The lid was totally clean and dry and the dead ants were gone. I thought my husband had cleaned up the dead ants and washed the lid! There was no residue of the sticky borax solution!! I asked the husband and he had not touched it! So is that normal!?!? It totally looked as tho someone had cleaned up the area and washed the lid!
Yes it works. I keep it in tupperware in the fridge. I looked up the recipe because after a couple of years the old solution isn’t working as well. i have been putting the solution in old plastic milk caps which has worked very well for me. I leave on the windowsill of the room they are coming into.
Worked like a charm!! We were a bit skeptical at first as we watched ants walk by the bait. Within due time they made their way onto cotton balls. We had quite the imfestion. We had (7) areas we baited. By early evening just a couple stragglers were left. This morning I’m happy to report NO ANTS!! Thank you for sharing this tip. Blessings to all🙏🏻
When my husband and I were building our first house someone told us to sprinkle borax in the spaces where the walls would be before the sheetrock was installed. We dutifully did it and the entire 14 years we lived in that house we had no ants or roaches. When we built our second house we did the same and again had no ant or roach problem the entire 28 years we lived in that house. We have since bought a previously owned house which has had termite and ant problems. We swear by borax as a preventative and are going to try it now as a remedy.
How long does this mixture last?
I used your formula for sugar ants in a persistently problem area. Highly effective in a day or two, and highly effective in the long term. At another home where the ants seemed to like meats (savory) I used a little meat blood. I make up about 2 Tbs. of solution, refrigerate and pour out 1/2 Tsp. on a plastic lid. That does the trick.
If you have pets in your house, an easy way to put this bait out safely is to drill/melt/cut small holes in old prescription bottles, put the cotton balls inside, then put the lids on and place the bottles around anywhere the ants are seen. The safety caps on the pill bottles keep even the most clever of cats from opening them, and the ants can still get to the bait.
I keep a tub in my basement with all the ingredients for the bait, several pre-drilled bottles, and a small Ziploc full of cotton balls so that I am prepared in the spring when the ants first arrive.
Thanks a heap Rachel! Every years I've spent $$$ on what always seemed a completely ineffective effort! I have a 150' brick sidewalk with a 4x4 border, which became a literal hwy for large AND small ants. Likely a hundred and more at any given time, of both sizes! No cotton balls in my wife's bathroom, so I confiscated 3 make-up pads..Dipped them in your formula solution with tweezers and as per your advice, folded over a plastic sheet protector and stapled so as to make a tunnel for them, so that pollinating insects won't imbibe! Temps were approaching 100F (38C), so I redipped on the 3rd day!) - Tomorrow I'm taking it down, I can't believe how effective it was! Thank you 5 times over! I'll send you the pics (2) of the ants and my setup if you email...
Question, anyone know if a Borax, sugar syrup expires ie. Loses it potency to kill the ants?