Does anyone know a good way to get rid of huge ant colonies? For some reason this year it seems every ant in the area has decided to make a metropolis in my yard. I’m talking about at least 3 different areas measuring about 3 feet in diameter. Two of them are the little 2mm ants. The others are the larger variety. When mowing my lawn last night the little ones decided my ankle looked good to chew on.
Stinging nettle juice
Very efficient, ecological deterrent.
Now is the ripe time to collect stinging nettle. Ideally, collect the weed with a lawn mower to mince it. Even if it’s not chopped, fill a trashcan with it, add water to brim. Let it marinate for a few days, stirring with a broomstick once in a while.
Spray the juice on ants’ paths and around the house. It won’t kill them, they’ll just migrate a bit further, or look for other places for food and lebensraum. Better so: if you destroy ants, small spiders ore worse–termites!–are likely to replace their arch-enemies.
Here in the desert in Nevada we have HUGE ant colonies on our
properties. A big bag of 5% Diazonan from WalMart does the
trick every year. You see the ant hill, sprinkle it on, and in 1/2 hour
they are dead. In 2 weeks more will hatch and you sprinkle it again,
all summer long…but it kills them fast.
Lolly
Surely the enviromentally friendly solution is a very hungry anteater?
I’ve never seen colonies of huge ants. Big ants, neither. That’d be scary, for sure.
I’ve never seen colonies of huge ants. Big ants, neither. That’d be scary, for sure.
Isn’t Nevada where “Them” took place? Maybe it was a true story.
Geek, stop! You’re scaring me, man! 
Big ants don’t bother me much, it’s those little red buggers (fire ants) that can make life hell. A visit to your local home store (Home Depot, Manards, Lowes, Wal-Mart, etc.) will show a dozen different pesticides you can use.
Diazinon probably works best, but isn’t the most environmentally friendly of items. It’ll kill the ants - and all the other bugs too. You can always use a garden hose to flood them out - or there’s good ol’ gasoline. Lighting it is optional, but if you insist, lay a trail and stand WAYYYYY back. For the pyromaniacs among us, it also provides a nice, if subdued, explosive display.
There is also a product called Combat that the ants pick up, take to the nest, feed to the queen and young ones. Kills the queen and that kills the the whole bloomin’ cycle. Other similar products are available I am sure.
Steven
Buy an ant-eater.
If they’re not hurting you, I’d just leave them alone.
I have a similar problem – three large (1-3 ft across, 3-12" high) anthills in my front yard. We also have termites (house has been treated) and at least two different kinds of wood-chewing ants as well as carpenter bees. I consider the anthills the least of our problems, but my wife kinda wants me to do something about it. I’d like to use something environmentally friendly (short of an anteater, which I don’t think our cats would like) – we have this spray that we use inside that smells like cloves, but I’m not sure whether it kills them or is just a repellant. I’ve looked at Home Depot and nurseries for spikes, i. e., timed-release things that target the area pretty well and don’t have much runoff, but they don’t seem to have those for ants, only termites.
Does boric acid kill them? It’s excellent for roaches, and I think I have some. Maybe I’ll just try it.
I second any kind of bait that the ants will take back to the coloney killing the queen and all. Just sprinkle a bit right where they are making their coloney, they’ll pick it up like it’s candy. Reapply as needed until you can mow your lawn in ant free peace. I figure ants have the whole of outdoors to live in… fields, mountains, vacant lots… It’s my yard where I draw the line. I don’t mind a few ants, but when they start swarming it’s time to curb back their numbers. I guess if it was just me I wouldn’t bother so much, but I have small children to think about. My mom when she was a little girl sat down on someones lawn, the grass was real thick and hid the ants until it was too late. They bit her all over, and it took a bath and some picking to remove them all from her skin. Ouch! If ants want to live under the sidewalk that’s one thing, but if they are making cities in the lawn… well it’s not a good thing, or necessarily the safest thing either if you plan on making regular use of that lawn. Go to a local nursery/garden store and ask what they recommend. There should be someone there who can point you in the right direction.
Goodluck!
Sara
Why does everybody want to KILL the ants?
Is a hole in your yard really worth taking the lives of thousands of ants?
As we’re in a particle physics mood tonight, how about my new revolutionary product, Antimatter Ants, or anti-ants for short.
You release a number of anti-ants into the anthill equal to the number of ants you already have, and as each ant/anti-ant pair meet, they vanish (with a massive release of energy of several megatons, true, but you can’t break eggs without making an omlette).
You do need to carefully count the number of ants you have because an unequal number of ants/anti-ants would be a disaster, but that’s a small problem you can work your way around.
Quote from Sara
"My mom when she was a little girl sat down on someones lawn, the grass was real thick and hid the ants until it was too late. They bit her all over, and it took a bath and some picking to remove them all from her skin. Ouch! "
There is more at stake then just a hole in the yard. If you ever have a little girl that this happens to and see the look on her face, that may put the lives of a few thousand ants in perspective. A similar incident happened to my daughter when she was three. The pain of the bites was one thing and the look of “Why?” on her face was another but an incident like that has long term effects on how a child views the natural world. This is from the guy who always tries to take any critters that make it into the house back outside instead of reaching for the nearest handy squashing instrument.
If deterents work (the nettles actually do and kept the big colony in the incident above away from our deck) then by all means use them. If not then there has to be a balance between safety of kids and adults and the lives of a few thousand ants. Telling the child to just stay away from the ants simply is not a valid option and often makes them more curious. My daughter didn’t want to go in our own backyard for a few weeks and still at four shies away from the deck.
Now to stay on topic a bit more… Boric acid may work but if the colony is as established as it sounds like then it probably won’t be enough. I’d avoid using gasoline but it is really effective, just not very safe. flooding the colony with water then tamping down the area will work short term. Long term the only real answer is to use a good quality pesticide specifically for ants. Just use caution and follow the directions carefully. I got tired of making the nettle extract eventually and ended up spraying a tankfull of pesticide under the deck. I really didn’t want to but I really did want my kids to be able to use the backyard (after the pesticide cleared off and the deck area was thouroghly washed)
P.S. The kind that gets carried into the colony and eventually gets to the queen and disrupts the whole colony do work the best but can take longer to work.
Mark V.
Quote @ markv
There is more at stake then just a hole in the yard. If you ever have a little girl that this happens to and see the look on her face, that may put the lives of a few thousand ants in perspective. A similar incident happened to my daughter when she was three. The pain of the bites was one thing and the look of “Why?” on her face was another but an incident like that has long term effects on how a child views the natural world.
You should be teaching your child respect for the natural world, and teaching her not to sit down on the ants in the first place. Showing her that you’re the bigger species so you get to poison the ants to death is shameful, in my humble truthfully honest opinion. We as humans are (or at least should be) above the unnecessary suffering of other animals as much as possible. The ants aren’t burning your house down or killing your family, you should just leave them alone. But, I digress.
No cranberry,
You can NOT leave ants alone. They do a lot of damage to one’s property.
They bite us. They come into our homes and bite us more. They bite
our pets. They raise aphids (like we raise cows) on our trees and then
the tree dies. I am talking about BIG red ones and also black ones.
You kill them like any other harmful bug.
Lolly
Considering that 99% of the ant colony is composed of mindless slave-workers, I doubt they have much capacity for suffering anyhow.
Well, at least you don’t have African driver ants in your backyard, them things will eat anything, including you if you stay still long enough! 
Look back at the first post in the thread and the mention of ‘little red ants’ chewing on ankles. West Virginia is probably to high and too far north to have fire ants, although they have begun to invade some Northern states such as Illinois. They are more than just a hole in the yard - they are an actual death risk to small animals including pets and can do serious harm to humans, especially kids, the elderly and otherwise infirm adults.
Like I said earlier, I don’t sweat the big black ones. Little red ones that bite are a totally different story. You only have two choices once they show up. Either kill them or cede them the yard. That’s it.
/me weeps
lol