So you know how to get rid of an ant hill, right? Do you think that it’s just as easy to get rid of a colony of flying ants? Unlike the regular walker ants, flying ants don’t set up their nest in the middle of the yard so that you can easily find and destroy them.
They’re much sneakier and their nests are better protected. This means that killing them won’t be too easy or fast. Here are some things you should understand about flying ants and how to dispose of them.
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How Did You Get Flying Ants in the First Place?
It’s important to know what flying ants are attracted to if you want to avoid any future infestations. Apart from being attracted to sugar, honey, and other sweet things, like many other ant species, flying ants are also attracted to certain types of places.
They are particularly fond of high places. That’s why it’s not uncommon for flying ants to gather around chimneys, towers, treetops, etc. So, if you’re wondering how flying ants got into your home, it was probably by falling through the chimney during their mating season or by flying through a window on the upstairs floor.
Target Points of Entry
One of the easiest ways to get rid of flying ants is to target their points of entry into the house. You can use an ant killer spray and disperse it around wall cracks, windows, chimneys, and other potential gateways. After that, you might want to spray other areas on your property.
Where Do Flying Ants Settle?
One area they like to nest in is, obviously, the pantry, or any other room where you store food. They are also attracted to attics and enclosures with lots of wood. Remember that flying ants include carpenter ants which are known to burrow through trees, wooden walls, roofs, and similar places.
Before attacking the colony, you should also make sure that you remove excess woody materials, especially all rotting wood from your garden. Only then can you be sure that the insecticide will actually do the trick.
It won’t take too many ants to slowly restart a colony.
Methods for Killing Flying Ants
Here are the most popular ways of dealing with flying ants. Some are more efficient than others, and some are less time-consuming. At the end of the day, you should pick whichever option suits your needs best.
Commercial Aerosol Products
Spraying ants on sight is easy and anyone can do it. These types of insecticides tend to be cheap and can catch the pesky little intruders in mid-flight, often killing them on the spot.
Some sprays have a residual effect that may last for more than a few hours. You should use that to spray around windows, cracks in the walls or roof, and in the attic. Most sprays are inefficient outside, but they should help when used indoors.
Spread Diatomaceous Earth
This is a natural insecticide that doesn’t harm humans or animals, making it one of the safest options to use inside and outside your home. Have in mind, though, it can be quite messy.
You can sprinkle Diatomaceous earth in the pantry, on windowsills, and in the attic to target flying ants. Throw some in their nest if you can find it, as that will work even better.
Plug in a Bug Zapper
It may be noisy, but the old-fashioned bug zapper is still one of the most efficient ways of killing flying insects. Buy one or two bug zappers and hang them in places where you’ve noticed a lot of flying ant activity.
Most ant zappers are designed to attract ants on their own. But if you want to, you can always put some bait on them. Just be careful not to use too much of it. If the ants stop right on top of the bait they may not get close enough to get zapped.
Insect Tape
Using sticky tape to trap and eventually kill ants is not unheard of. You can do this, as long as you use high-quality tape with a very sticky surface. Granted, this is a method usually employed to dispose of walker ants. But unlike pouring boiling water into an ant hill, sticky tape does work with flyers too.
In order to make it work, you’ll have to hang it in the rooms that flying ants frequent. Alternatively, you can also place some tape on top of food, or even sprinkle some sugar on the tape. Clearly, not the most efficient method to get rid of flying ants, but it’s worth a try if you’re low on resources.
Foam Insecticides
Foam insecticides are among the most efficient ant killers, hands-down. Whether it’s flying ants or walker ants, foam insecticides will work because the foam will block access paths into their nest.
You can use foam insecticides with ease too. Most of them come with containers that feature a long tube, narrow enough to stick inside the cracks in the walls, roof, furniture, or trees.
Trap and Kill
Buying or making your own bait stations is the next logical step. Why are these effective? It’s because ant bait attracts ants whether they’re flyers or walkers. Using a sugary mix with some borax and water will almost always do the trick.
Baking soda and powdered sugar are also efficient lures. The sugar will attract the ants and the baking soda will kill them. That’s because it creates a violent reaction when coming in contact with an acidic substance found in all ant species.
Buying commercial bait will also work, sometimes even better than the standard options. Why? Because some commercial baits contain slow-acting insecticide. These types of broadcasting formulas are superior because ants won’t die on contact. They will first carry the bait back to their nest where other ants will get infected and die, including the queen.
Don’t Forget About the Last Resort
If flyer ants burrowed too deep into your home and your DIY tricks aren’t working, there’s always an alternative. Who are you going to call? Not Ghostbusters, I’ll tell you that. But, an exterminator might not be such a bad idea.
One of the biggest issues most homeowners face is ant infestations inside and outside simultaneously. There are almost always some stray ants left that eventually regroup and start rebuilding and wreaking havoc all over again. A licensed exterminator will have access to powerful insecticides that will quickly eradicate any ant colony.