How to Make an Ant Trap

Intro: How to Make an Ant Trap

In this video I'll show you how to make a homemade ant trap using peanut butter and borax.  No chemicals are needed.  This is an inexpensive solution and it is easy to do yourself with products you can usually find in your house already.  The best part is that it actually works.  On four occasions I have had little sugar ants getting the house through a tiny crack near the door to the kitchen.  These ants then wander all around the kitchen looking for something greasy or sweet to eat.  Whenever I see them I place a homemade trap like the one in this video near their entry point and they can't help but stop and go for the easy meal.  They eat the food and bring it back to the colony without continuing their search any further into the kitchen.  The key to success is when one of the ants brings some Peanut Butter and Borax back to the Queen of the colony.  Once she takes the bait and experiences the effects of Borax the whole colony will die out.

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Comments

[nhoj2891]

Instead of putting the bait inside where the ants are find the trail outside and place the bait there to keep from drawing them in and aid in reducing the numbers inside. Unless the ants have begun nesting in the wall or crawlspace. The same idea would also work for roaches as well just fyi.

[BigNate84]

Thanks for the tip. In my case the ants live underneath the door jam. This year the ants came back and I put the trap outside (like you suggest). The only problem was after a couple days I noticed the trap was completely gone. I think a squirrel or chipmunk must have eaten the bait and carried off the bottle cap. But the trap did seem to do the job before it went missing.

[nhoj2891]

You can also try using honey it works well and you won't have to worry about pesky rodents.

[lalexander]

to avoid accidental ingestion from pets, kids or wildlife you can take a small tin can and punch holes in it, and then nail it down to a wood surface with the ant bait inside (base of a tree, junk scrap wood, ect) and the animals and kids cant get into it as easy. also works if you put the ant bait inside a soda can and then crush it about half way. ants can get to the bait but animals wont want to chew thru the crushed can. if the can is uncrushed then animals can tear it open easier.

a trick i use to keep ants out of the kitchen is to pour a little syrup or leave bits of food (or maybe ant bait) in the bathtub. that way they go for stuff away from the eating area. and cleaning up the horde of ants is easy as running the shower wand. and, if you have glass shower doors you can prevent pets from getting to the bait.

[BigNate84]

Thanks for the tips on housing the ant bait such that pets and children won't be able to ingest it. Good ideas.