Homemade Ant Bait for Sugar Loving Pests.

The recipe is simple.

Ingredients:

3 to 4 tablespoons (42 to 56 ml) hot water

1 tablespoon of Borax

4 tablespoons of common granulated Sugar

A wide mouth jar with a top that seals "Reasonably well".  I suggest a jelly jar.

Process:

This needs hot water to mix all the ingredients.

Use oven mitts so you don't burn yourself.

Add the hot water to the empty jar.

Add the 4 Tablespoons of Sugar to the water.

Stir or shake until the simple syrup is made.

Add 1 Tablespoon of Borax to the liquid.

Stir or shake until the mix is complete.  It will be clear when you are done.

The Use:

I place a few drops to a teaspoon in an old bottle cap.  

The mixture will be about as thick as a maple syrup. 

Do not "Fill" the cap as the ants will need a way to get to the liquid to feed.

Place the cap near or on the ant trails and allow them to feed.

While the mixture is reasonably safe to handle, do not use consume or drink this as you will be eating borax which is used in the laundry to assist whitening and cleaning of your clothes. "Not For Internal Use" (or external use I would assume).

Even though some toys like "Slime" are made with Borax, Don't eat the stuff.

The Story is simple.  There was an ant bloom coming in from next door and we sprayed and put down ant bait.  That kept them away for a while, but we are in the wet season so every time it rained, they came back.

This worked on multiple species of ants, in my garden and seems to work by causing a "Colony Collapse".  They feed on the bait, take it back to the colony to share and it sickens them until the colony can no longer support itself or the queen.  Then they "disappear".

This works on pests that eat sugar and sweets of which are many species. 

Since this is so amazingly cheap to make, I always try this before spraying.  It just requires patience for it to work.