Does anybody know if ant powder kills ants or just repels them?

I keep seeing the odd ant walk across my floor. Maybe it's the same ant but I can't be sure...

Now, if I put ant powder around the edges of my floor, would the ants walk over it? I don't really want to kill them.

Somebody told me that sprinkling salt on the floor would work but I'm unsure about this as it all seems a bit voodoo.

Find the nest and pour boiling water down it. Ants don't feel pain, proven fact

GaryTheNoTrashCougar said:

I just couldn't.

In any case, I don't know where they're coming from. I'm pretty sure there's more than one now. I felt something on my leg. Ugh.

Justin1972UK said:

Then call the animal shelter and tell them you have pedigree ants.

I'm going to put this to the back of my mind for a day or too but if I see them walking in pairs, I'll have to reassess the situation.

thank you for not wanting to kill the ants - there's a special place in heaven for people like you!

here's something i found:

How to Stop Ant Infestations Humanely
Summary
To humanely prevent ants entering a house, give them a more convenient source of sugar outside the house.

Discovery of the Cure
Ants do not commonly infest houses throughout the year in the UK but they do forage into houses sometimes. The trail of ants is not normally a serious problem but can nevertheless be irritating, unsightly and/or unhygienic. I don't like it because of the difficulty not squashing the poor little creatures whilst I walk around and because I find ants in my food off-putting.

The traditional cures involve killing the whole nest by pouring poison or boiling water into it or by using a slow acting poison (borax) mixed with food (sugar) that worker ants will carry back and distribute. These seemed excessive to me. I had no objection to ants, only to them coming into my house - particularly as the room they mainly entered was my kitchen.

In approximately 1997, I thought anent redirecting the ants instead. This idea was inspired by reading of Richard Feynman's casual experiments in redirecting ant columns by moving individual ants until the pheromone trail was changed. I was less subtle, I selectively squashed individual ants that were going in directions I did not want them to. I reasoned that, for ants, the ant colony is effectively the independent creature and the individual ants were like cells of the colony so squashing a few ants would be much less cruel than poisoning the whole colony.

It did not work. I thought maybe that the learning process that way was too slow so that the lost ants would not be associated with danger in the direction of my kitchen. It tried increasing it to laying barriers of contact poison (permethrin) across the thresholds to deter all ants from entering. That did not work either.

Obviously the ant colony desired something in my kitchen that it would sacrifice dozens of ants to get it. As all the endpoints of the column were sugar sources, the main one being the lid of a fruit cordial bottle, I hypothesised that the ants were desperate for sugar. Hence I thought that if they had a safer source of sugar they might not bother with my kitchen. I gave them such a source by dropping a dessertspoonful of golden syrup on their route between the nest and my house.

It worked! Very soon there were lots of ants at the syrup blob and none in my kitchen. Every time I have had an ant infestation since then, I've repeated the procedure of paying off the ants with a dollop of sugar syrup and the ants problem has been cured.

I did not publishing it on my website though because I thought that the method would probably not work in warmer countries where ants are more numerous. In my area of Britain, ants are mostly small (about 3 mm long) harmless black ones which I have only found entering houses in search of food shortly before swarming time. However, an answerer to a question anent using pet anteaters to kill ants mentioned that this method also worked in Hong Kong (Miller 2004)! As it reportedly even works in the hot & humid insect favouring climate of Hong Kong, it seemed that it was worth publishing after all. Even though it the solution is therefore already on the WWW in the New Scientist's archive, that article is not something that is easy to find by searching (unless one knew that it already existed). Indeed, using Google to search for 'humane' & 'ant' mainly leads to sites selling ant poison! I am adding my version of the advice here in the hope that it will reduce unnecessary cruelty to some ant colonies (and help some people who are fed up with ants in their houses).

Bibliography
J. Miller, 2004, 'The Last Word: The Natural Assassin', New Scientist, 2004/7/17, 2456, p. 85.


also:

[i]Living in Harmony With Ants
Ants have been scurrying around on Earth for about 100 million years and can be found almost anywhere on the planet. There are 600 known species of ants in the U.S., but only a very small percentage of species take up residence near our homes.

Ants are extremely social insects and live in colonies that usually center on one or more egg-laying “queens” with smaller worker ants caring for the queen and her eggs. In these colonies, every ant has an individual job. Workers forage and bring food back to the colony. Workers are incapable of digesting the food, but the larvae are not, so the workers give the food to the larvae, and the young ants digest the food and regurgitate it back to the worker ants, who then take it to the rest of the colony. Ants also work together to transport materials in and out of the colony. Although these tiny critters can carry five to 20 times their body weight, ants also work cooperatively in small groups to transport heavier objects.

Different species of ants have different food preferences. When a worker ant has found a good food source, he leaves a scent trail so the other ants can find the food. In case you’re wondering, that’s how they all seem to know where to find your cereal!

Did you know?
With their combined weight greater than the combined weight of all humans, ants are the most numerous type of animal on earth. Ants have been known to share mutually beneficial relationships with plants. In what are known as symbiotic associations, both organisms benefit from the relationship through enhanced survival, growth, or fitness. In Central America, ants live in the swollen thorn sections of Acacia trees, where the plant provides shelter and nutrients to the ants, and in return, the ants defend the Acacia tree from invaders. The ants attack other insects, mammals, or plants such as vines that try to invade their home. On the other hand, they steer clear of bees and other insects that pollinate the Acacia’s flowers, allowing the tree to reproduce.

Humane Ant Control
Now, the relationship between you and the ants in and around your home may be far from mutually beneficial. If so, there are a few simple things that you can do to solve any perceived problems with these tiny beings without the need for toxic chemicals and cruel traps. Because insecticides are potentially hazardous to all animals, including humans, you should never use them. The best way to keep ants from entering your home is to remove sources of attraction. Keep your kitchen clean. Do not leave crumbs or garbage around, and keep all food, including companion-animal food, and trash in tightly sealed containers. Wash countertops, floors, and cabinets with equal parts vinegar and water.

When you see ants in your home, try to follow them back to the point where they entered. Use caulk to seal all possible entrances into the house, remembering that ants are tiny and can fit through almost any small opening. Apply weather stripping under doors and seal holes and cracks with caulk.

A product called Orange Guard is a nontoxic organic ant repellent that is harmless to humans and other animals and will drive ants away from areas where they are not wanted. However, when applied directly to ants, the active ingredient d-Limonene (orange peel extract) destroys the waxy coating of the insects’ respiratory systems, causing the ants to suffocate, so please do not spray ants with the repellent. Simply spray the repellent around your home—the citrus fragrance of d-Limonene will repel the ants without killing them.

There are also many natural repellents that you can place around your home to prevent ants from coming in. If ants are coming in the cracks of doors and windows, put a cinnamon stick, coffee grinds, chili pepper, paprika, or dried peppermint leaves near the openings. You can also squeeze the juice of a lemon at the entry spot and leave the peel there. Planting mint around the foundation of the house will also keep ants away.

IrresistibleB1tch said:

Ah! Thanks for this. I'll definitely track down some of that citrus stuff to repel them and I'll also have to work out where they're coming from, so I can do the syrup-diversion thing. At the time of writing, I can't see any ants.

Ants also hate chalk.

Not sure why.

Pest control (i.e Rentokil) use a gluey substance that attracts the ants - The Ant(s) crawl through this and carry it back to its nest and then the Poisons in the substance kill the ants off at the Nest - I dont know the name of it - however I was given some by a man from Rentokil and it worked. We had a major problem with ants a couple of years ago, we dont now. This poison will harm cats and dogs etc, so you gotta be careful with it. It comes with a small disc shaped pot with holes in the side for the ants to go in and out of and obviously a lid.

I don't really agree with killing things, but we did have a serious infestation - the Ants where everywhere.

purpledisc said:

Well, like I said, it's only the odd one or two. Where all the spiders when you need them?

Justin1972UK said:

Lol.....I didnt know spiders ate ants?

Ants are so freaking amazing. I saw a doocumentary on fire ants and they all huddled up to make themselves into a raft to float down a river !!! how Cool...??

I sat and watched the ants in the yard at my new home, they carried their dead out of the nest and dump them outside.

Whilst on Holiday in Fuerte Ventura I watched Ants carry a dead wasp and work totally in unison to overcome several obstacles in their way, like carrying the wasp over a gap in the wall, hard to explain, but it is a truly amazing thing to see.

purpledisc said:

Oh, God. They're going to take over the flat like 'Empire Of The Ants' or something. I'll come home from work one day, put my keys in the door and find that they've changed the locks.

Justin1972UK said:[quote]

purpledisc said:

Oh, God. They're going to take over the flat like 'Empire Of The Ants' or something. I'll come home from work one day, put my keys in the door and find that they've changed the locks.

I pissed myself laughing at that !!!!!


Seriously, though Ants are fairly harmless, If you had a rat infestation there would be more to worry about.
[Edited 4/16/06 16:55pm]

I don't like to kill ants. We get these big red ones that go up and down the wooden beams on the edge of our balcony, along the walls, and down the electric/phone lines in their thousands. I'm cool to leave them there to do their thing so long as they don't set foot actually on our balcony. If they do start to get curious I lay down a line of powder at the edge of the balcony. Typically a handful of the more inquistive ones will try to be heroes and make a go at wading through it. These ones die. What I've found is that ants are smart creatures and it's clear that they do have some sort of recognition when they see this stuff and a few dead ants in it and know not to go there. It always works for me. Happens about 2 or 3 times a year. The ants go back to safer routes away from our balcony and everyone's happy. As I said, I don't like killing ants and I'm happy for them to go about their business around me, but I can't just let them walk all over my balcony or into my room so I send a message to a handful of them and thousands are saved!

p.s. That alternate sugar source thing wouldn't work here. Their nest is in the mango tree next to our balcony so wherever they go for sugar they'll still be coming back to the nest. Also, a glob of syrup put anywhere would mean the arrival of millions of large red ants, a problem you'd then probably have to deal with once the syrup was used up.

...
[Edited 4/16/06 17:18pm]

OK.....Confession time.

Please dont laugh.....


It is not nice killing animals / insects because they are a part of an Eco System that is already fragile.

I once nearly got killed rescuing a hedgehog from the middle of a road.....Freaky thing is - It was on the way home from a prince concert in 1986 at Wembley Arena !!!!!

I am a Hippy in some respects.....

purpledisc said:[quote]

Justin1972UK said:

Don't get me started on that. Going to the bathroom in the middle of the night is a nightmare.

Fauxie said:

sorry !!!!!

sorry , i love animals , but i think ants are gross

Dewrede said:

I dont like slugs !! I once stood on a slug and the squishy sound + the mess made me vomit

I had that too but with bare feet

Dewrede said:

I was in socks Very very gross !!!

purpledisc said:

I imagine it's worse than standing on Lego.

purpledisc said:

They are gross , period