Ants...

RomanBuck

RomanBuck

Simandoa
How does one get ants out of an enclosure? My Blaberus chacoensis bin is FILLED with them... I'm freaking out really bad right now.

 
What I plan on doing is using toothpaste on the outsides of all of the containers. I took all of the roaches out of the infected bin and threw out all of the contents. The really weird thing about it is that they only went for the bin without a lid. If the toothpaste doesnt work then I will go ahead and make some duct tape traps.

 
You can lure ants with corn syrup laced with boric acid. You can disolve the boric acid (actually orthoboric acid) in the corn syrup and make sure that your desired insects cannot get to it. This will work on termites and any other kind of insect without any toxicity.

 
All you needed to do was place this (http://www.homedepot...06db6a5_400.jpg) on the outside of the enclosure. It is cheap and will not harm your other arthropods. The ants will be gone. If other colonies come they will also be taken care of. I have lost colonies and other arthropods to ants. I now place one of these in the arthropod room in the spring (when the ants come in) and I have not lost any animals since. If it dries out just add more water. They last a long time.

 
Does toothpaste really work? I know diatomaceous earth is an ingredient in it, but I always thought it had to be in a dry form to kill insects.

 
I had a bad ant problem not that long ago. They always seem to go for the easiest target and will attack only one bin at a time. I just put vaseline at the openings of all my bins and they weren't able to cross it or had trouble doing so. I haven't had an ant problem since. I also use the baited ant traps.

Ants and fruit flies are the bane of my existance.

 
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The ants are ganging up on my mealworm colony now... I added the lesser mealworms in with the mealworms to see if that would help. If the lessers take out the mealworms, flies, and the ants, I am just keeping lessers. These ants have gotten really ridiculous.

 
DUDE!!! :)

All you needed to do was place this (http://www.homedepot...6db6a5_400.jpg) on the outside of the enclosure. It is cheap and will not harm your other arthropods. The ants will be gone. If other colonies come they will also be taken care of. I have lost colonies and other arthropods to ants. I now place one of these in the arthropod room in the spring (when the ants come in) and I have not lost any animals since. If it dries out just add more water. They last a long time.

 
I have never had a pest infestation ever in my old house so I dont have much experience with this stuff. After putting the lessers in there, I realized that was a mistake lol. They are eating the worm pupa. Oh well :P Next time I get worms I will be keeping them at a friends house.

 
I believe they are just regular carpenter ants... They suck because they come in packs of hundreds. I can always try and get photos for you but they may suck :P

 
RomanBuck said:
I believe they are just regular carpenter ants... They suck because they come in packs of hundreds. I can always try and get photos for you but they may suck :P
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The large numbers don't sound like Camponotus to me, but that is certainly possible. Camponotus spp. tend to keep the majority of their colony's population outside and then build small satellite nests indoors.

Photos (even blurry ones) would probably be enough for at least a genus-level ID.

 
I can't believe you never took the excellent advice to use the Terro syrup lol... the stuff works, it attracts them to eat it and they carry it back to their colony in the process. It cannot harm your roaches.

And something will have to smell a LOT stronger than toothpaste to keep carpenter ants away, if they really are Camponotus...

 
Mr. Crackerpants & Mr. Internet,

Apologies for rebooting an old thread. Just wanted to say I took your excellent advice, and a HUGE thank you is in order. That Terro made quick work of cleaning out the ant colony that showed up almost overnight in my B. lateralis. For anyone checking this thread in the future, I can confirm that the Terro does the trick! Don't waste time on anything else.

 
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