Sugar ants are regular guests in your kitchen and pantry. These daily annoyances enter your house to find sweet substances. They may scour through honey jars, sugar bags, and syrup bottles to satisfy their cravings. The majority of ants hunt for sweet stuff such as pollen, fruit, aphids, and nectar as their nutritional fix. But not all species will search for sugary items like the sugar ants. If you have been dealing with sugary ants, contact a Round Rock pest control company for help. While you may be able to eliminate a few ants you can find, only experts get to the root if the issue.
If you suspect that sugar ants have infested your kitchen, act right away. These species of ants can quickly overtake your pantry or kitchen when you do not take steps to address the issue. Here are tips you should keep in mind:
Store Sweet Food Properly
As sugar ants hunt for sugary food items indoors, they raid unsecured food. They will forage through cookies, sugar, jelly, syrup, molasses, and honey. Groceries stored in flimsy or loose packaging require separate packaging to safeguard them from sugar ants and other unwanted guests. Ants can crawl through tiny openings to get to their prize. Sugary products must be stored in tightly sealed containers. Also, other sugary syrups and jellies must be kept tightly closed and cleaned. Remember that any residual mess left on a container’s side could attract sugary ants to your cabinets.
Clean Up Right After a Meal or Snack
Leftover food and crumbs may attract sugar ants. Uncleaned messes capture the attention of many pests including ants and flies. After a meal, wipe down the counters, dishes, and stove to eliminate left-behind food. Sweep up the floors to deprive sugar ants of food on the ground. As jellies, sodas, jams, and syrups can leave a thick residue behind for ants to feast on, you should wipe away such mess.
Remember to Take Care of Your Trash
Tie the garbage together securely and dispose of it promptly. Even if you have disposed of your sweet leftovers, sugar ants can comb through them to find their next sweet treat.
Consider Using Ant Bait
Put the bait where sugar ants are usually found such as inside the pantry, on the counters, or around the trash can. But make sure to reach the instructions that come with the product to ensure its effectiveness. When ants discover the gel-based baits, they consume the poison in them. This gets rid of foraging ants and affects other ants in their colony they share ten baits with. You may notice the ant issue increase when you use the bait; however, this is completely normal. As ants smell the bait, more of them will appear. But their population should reduce after a few weeks.
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Create Your Own Bait
Mixing boric acid and borax with honey, sugary, or syrup can draw an army of ants to your bait. You will eliminate other members of their colony as those that have taken your homemade bait will go back to the mound and share the bounty. Boric acid and borax will destroy the digestive system of ants. Rather than killing sugar ants on the spot, the bait will allow them to survive long enough to share the poison around others.
Additionally, you can use vinegar sprays to get rid of sugar ants. Vinegar is highly acidic, so it has to be diluted with water. Place the mixture in a spray bottle and spray it on visible ants.
Hire a Pest Control Professional
If you are struggling with sugar ants, turn to dependable pest control solutions to control them. Pest control technicians are well-trained in ant elimination. They know the right solution to use based on your specific situation.
