How To Recognise A Sugar Ant
Banded sugar ants are native to Australia and still havent migrated to any other parts of the world. Their size varies from 5 to 15 mm, with the minor worker ants being the smallest, the major worker ants a bit bigger, and the queen is the biggest.
The male ants are almost completely black with only small parts of their thorax and legs having a rusty colour. The female ones are more distinguishable because the only black part of their body is the head, while the thorax and the band around their gaster are orange-brown. In a few words: they are lighter in colour and bigger in size.
Sugar ants are often mistaken for pharaoh ants or pavement ants as the colour difference is quite small. The pharaoh ants are more yellow-ish and light brown, while the pavement ants are dark, reddish brown or black.
Eliminate The Sugar Ants With White Vinegar
Vinegar, especially the white kind, is a highly acidic substance that has the powers to dissolve a lot of strong odours and stains. This is why its so widely used as the main ingredient in many DIY cleaning solutions for any type of surface.
Luckily, white vinegar can also help you prepare a natural remedy to safely get rid of the sugar ants in your home. Just follow the steps below:
- Fill a spray bottle with a mixture of equal parts of cold water and white vinegar.
- Apply this solution to all possible entry points and other places where youve seen a lot of ants.
- Check regularly for any victims and wipe them away as soon as they are dead.
Keep in mind that sugar ants are most active in the early morning or late afternoon, so this is when spraying will provide the best results.
What Are Ants Doing In My House
Ants are part of natures cleaning crew: they efficiently find and remove food left around the house. The problem is, sometimes humans dont want their help.
Youve probably noticed ants more commonly come indoors in summer – thats largely because most insects are more active in the warmer months.
Ants occasionally come inside in search of water, particularly during dry periods. In this case you may see them in bathrooms or other humid parts of the house.
Heavy rains can also cause ant nests to flood and force them to relocate to nearby buildings, such as your house.
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How To Eliminate An Ant Infestation In House
If you have an ant infestation in your house, you may be tempted to use over-the-counter foggers or sprays that you can pick up at the grocery or hardware store. But, these products are actually less helpful and also more harmful than many people realize. Ant killer sprays are useful only for killing the ants that you can see, meaning they are not effective at killing all the other ants that are out of sight in the nest. Furthermore, sprays and foggers arent effective against all types of ants, only certain varieties. And if you have children or pets in the home, or if youre concerned about environmental toxins, these may not be viable options for you. Ant baits are typically the most effective approach, but they still require trial and error as you experiment with different types and brands of bait to find the one that works best for your particular ant problem.
Investigate The Rest Of Your Home
The kitchen is the most common place where sugar ants go and are drawn to, but its not the only one.
A forgotten candy wrapper under your living room sofa can feed a lot of the insects for a long period of time.
Do a bit of investigation to check whether there is another food source that could be attracting the bugs. In case you do find one, get rid of it immediately and thoroughly clean the area around it and just to make sure the whole house.
There is also the chance that you wont find any other possible food source, which means that you might be attacked by a different species of ants. For example, carpenter ants settle their homes in damp, decaying, old wooden furniture and will go for any type of food. If you notice a nest of ants in such locations, maybe its time to call a professional pest control technician.
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Eliminate The Food Supply
Ants need food and that is the mean thing that they are looking for. Cookie crumbs on counter tops, food scraps in a sink, open containers and dirty floors are the ants version of an all you can eat buffet.
If you have a dirty house, the ants will multiply and before you know it, youll have a full blown invasion on your hands. The answer is simple, of course. Take away their food supply and you will have less ants.
Consider investing in air tight containers. I use Oxo containers and love them.
They seal easily and my pantry doesnt have any evidence of ants in it since I started using them.
Sugar Ants In Specific Places In The House What Should You Do
What exactly should you do, if you have a sugar ant problem only in one specific room in your house?
- The first few steps are the same for every room in your place. Identify the ants, you need to know that you are dealing with sugar ants.
- Then find the entry points. You should have to spend some time, figuring out where the ants are heading, but be patient, as you would have to focus on these areas in the future. If you are lucky, you will be able to find the ant nest. However, do bear in mind that sometimes the anthills can be hidden.
- After that, you can use one out of many methods to get rid of the ants. However, dont forget to erase the ant trail with the help of a mixture of vinegar and water, for example. Sugar ants leave a special pheromone trail. Other workers follow the trail, so getting rid of it is extremely important.
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Deter Ants With Cloves Bay Leaves And Garlic
As youve probably noticed already, ants are quite sensitive to strong smells, which means that cloves, bay leaves, and garlic also have a strong deterring effect when placed around in the house.
You can hang them on strings or just put them in locations that have a stronger ant concentration. The powerful smell will confuse the senses of the ants and throw them off their scent trail.
The Most Common Types Of Kitchen Ants
The tiny ants often discovered foraging in your kitchen are often lumped together under the name “sugar ant.” And while it’s true that sweet, carbohydrate-rich foods can be irresistible to virtually any ant, sugar ants are a very specific type of ant. In fact, their true name is the “banded sugar ant“, and the species is native to Australia. Therefore, the ants you’re seeing in your kitchen are likely not actual sugar ants.
The common household ants infesting in your kitchen likely belong to one of five species of tiny ant: the little black ant, the pharaoh ant, the odorous house ant, the pavement ant or the Argentine ant. All five ants are truly tiny, with workers averaging around one-eighth of an inch in length. Each of these species of ant are also extremely opportunistic and may establish colonies indoors.
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What Is A Budding Ant
While certain ant colonies have only one queen, budding ant species have multiple queens that are friendly to each other. The colony uses multiple queens as a means of reproduction and protection. The process of ‘budding’ occurs when one queens leaves with a group of workers to establish a nest of their own somewhere else.
Tips To Keep An Ant Infestation Under Control
These ants do bite in defense and can be painful. On average, a colony could contain as much as 3,000 ants, thus explain how these ants infestation can get out of control. Here are some short term quick steps you can take to keep the problem under control
- Ensure housekeeping is diligently met, including proper food storage and disposal
- Make sure moisture level is under control. Check for any leaking pipes or leaks
- Seal cracks around the foundation
- Install screens to prevent potential entry to your home
- Keep a look out for tell-tale signs such as presence of sawdust-alike substance or wood damage. However, most of us tend to mistaken it for termites. Find out more on the .
- Remove excess from your garden, like unwanted grass, debris, wood piles, leaves etc
Treating an ant infestation at home with professional help
Our job is to help you clarify your doubts, particularly, to help you identify which pest is actually bothering your home and why. Accurate identification is the first step before any recommendation can be offered to resolve your worries. Get in touch with us to find out the ant control solutions available today.
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Syngenta Optigard Ant Bait Gel Box
- Target pests: For indoor and outdoor control of…
- Highly attractive formula promotes ready transfer of the active…
- Powerful, active ingredient knocks out workers, brood and queens
- Approved for use indoors and outdoors, applied in cracks and…
- How does Optigard Ant Bait Gel work? Ants that feed on the gel…
HARRIS Borax Liquid Ant Killer includes 9 bait trays and is able to kill all common household ants . Borax is the active ingredient used in the product. It is a naturally occurring mineral powder that will help you get rid of sugar ants. You can spread all 9 bait trays over a large area .
The bait is sweet and the ants would be happy to bring it back to their colony. The product kills the ants slowly, thats why the workers will have plenty of time to poison the entire colony.
The bait will kill the ant within 48 hours. It might take the product around 2 weeks to fully eliminate a mild infestation. Make sure to remove all food sources. Otherwise, the ants might get distracted from the bait.
You have to be very careful with borax and make sure that your children and pets do not come across this substance. Please do make sure that your cat or dog stays away from the poison.
Why Are There Sugar Ants In My Bed
A bedroom is not a common place for sugar ants, but they may have several reasons for coming. As we know, search for food is what basically leads them to your place, so if you better quit eating in bed. Another reason is the smell your sheets can keep smells which attract the insects. Wash bed sheets, blankets, and pillow cases as often as possible and use a bleacher-based washer.
If you and your bed are tidy, the problem may lay in your building: old houses with lots of space in the walls and the floors seem like a comfortable place for ants to nest. Try to find and isolate every hole that may be an ant entering point to your bedroom.
The other reason is the fusty air in the bedroom try and ventilate it more often or get an air conditioner to eliminate the house smells. And once a week wed advise you to wash your bedroom floor with vinegar.
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Are Sugar Ants Harmful To Humans
In most cases, sugar ants are not harmful to humans because they don’t bite or sting. They can be a nuisance though since their constant eating will attract other insects who might pose more of a threat, for example, cockroaches. Sugar ants do not carry any harmful diseases that can be passed onto humans, however, you still shouldn’t have to live with them hanging around your kitchen.
Sugar Ants Are Attracted To Ant Traps
One of the first things you need to try when attempting to get rid of sugar ants is an ant trap. Often times, you can find these ant traps at your local hardware store.
These products contain a bit of poison, which helps to snuff out the ant once they travel into the trap. When putting these traps around your home, be sure to keep them out of the reach of small children and pets.
Before you buy a particular brand of ant trap, be sure to do some research to find out how effective they have been for other consumers. The traps specifically made for these types of ants will feature sugar or artificial sweeteners.
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Get Rid Of Sugar Ants In 3 Steps
The term sugar ant is a term used to describe a variety of ant species that seek out sweets in your home. In the United States and Canada, the term sugar ant is used to describe any sweet-eating ant that invades your home. These sugar ants are usually small and especially persistent in their efforts to raid your kitchen, cabinets, and sinks in an attempt to haul bits of food back to their nest.
To get rid of these ants, you need to follow three basic tips:
STEP 1 — Seal off their entryways, wherever possible
STEP 2 — Lay down ant bait, like our TERRO® Liquid Ant Baits, to eliminate the colony
STEP 3 — Limit their access to food inside your house
Of course, you probably want a few details on why sugar ants are targeting your home, what they are after and specific tips to eliminate the problem, so read on. Beating these sweet-eating ants is possible, and this quick guide will show you how to fight sugar ants in any of their forms.
What You Need To Know About Sugar Ants
Over centuries, sugar ants have adapted to the point that billions of them march about in different parts of the world as you read this.
Thus, they are arguably one of the most common pests across continents. To learn how to get rid of sugar ants, youd need to understand them a little better.
So lets start by looking at a few things that you should know about sugar ants.
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Sugar Ants Are Tiny But Also A Big Nuisance
A sugar ant is about as small as a pest gets, with an average length of only 1/8. When youve spotted this kind of ant in or around your home, you were likely looking at a whole crew of them on a crumb your child left on the sidewalk or around your kitchen garbage.
Only see one sugar ant? Dont let that fool you. A single ant means there is an ant colony.
An ant infestation can be a bigger problem when a colony makes itself comfortable around or inside your home. They might not cause structural damage to a property like other ants and pests, but they do come in swarms and they are incredibly difficult to remove if not handled properly.
Home Remedies For Sugar Ants
If you are against the use of chemicals and poisonous substances, you would like to know how to get rid of sugar ants naturally. We can advice you some home remedies to gain your goal. In this case getting rid of sugar ants will be long but safe. This is especially acceptable when there are pets, children or allergy sufferers in your house. Some of these methods lead to positive results.
Any home remedies can ward off these insects for a while. But you should take into account that you see only worker ants on the surface. The main individuals, which produce offspring, are in secluded places and continue to live and reproduce. Therefore, you will not solve the problem if you repel some of the sugar ants.
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What Attracts Ants To A House
Ants are attracted to anything that is damp or that contains standing water in your home. They are attracted to anything that is sweet. Pets and bread are attractive to ants. They use a variety of methods to find a place to lay their eggs. One of the most common methods is to dig a hole in the ground and place their egg in it.
The egg will hatch into a larva, which will then crawl into the hole and lay its eggs in another hole. This process continues until all the eggs have been laid. Once the larvae have hatched, they will move to a new hole to begin their new life.
Final Notes How To Get Rid Of Sugar Ants
Sugar ant is just a slang term for a huge variety of insects that can wreak havoc on your life in a short period. That is why it makes sense to have the correct information regarding these bothersome creatures. And hopefully, we have provided that here.
It can be a challenging process to get rid of ants in your home, especially if there are a lot of them. Therefore, it is good to seek a pest control service or exterminator if you get stuck.
It makes no difference whether you have black ants, brown ants, or sugar ants. A trained professional can help you deal with them every step of the way.
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