Ants!!!!!

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yukonhijack

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I live in the desert southwest, and one thing we have to battle with is ants. I brew in my garage and work hard to keep everything clean, but the last two batches I have made, where I Put the fermentor in the garage on the garage floor, have been found by ants. None of them have gotten into the fermentors (thankfully) but I did have to hose them off with my starsan spray bottle. I put both of the fermentors on my work bench which seems to have fixed the problem (for now).

Do any of you have ant or bug problems in your brewery? Give that what we are making is essentially thick, sticky sugar water, it seems logical that ants and other similar bugs would be interested in it. If you have had problems, how have you dealt with it?

Greg
 
We get our share of ants in our home. The early bout of warm weather has just started bringing them in now. Every year I get some of that ant and roach barrier stuff, go outside and spray all along the perimeter of the house and around any cracks or gaps. I repeat this a couple times throughout the warm season. That helps limit the ant invasions.

I once found a swarm of them all over some cases of bottled beer that I was aging. I realized that they were attracted to the little bit that dripped down and dried on the outsides of the bottles when I bottled the batch. Now, after bottling, I give each one a quick rinse with water. I also wipe down the outsides of fermenters after racking into them.

Keeping all your brewing areas wiped up will really help. All it takes is a little drip of wort or beer to draw them into your area.
 
Terro ant bait. Or make your own by mixing borax and sugar water. The ants tell their friends about it, and they all come marching in to eat it up. They carry it back to the nest and die.
 
If all else fails, this guy can help.

90_Awesome_Anteater_Tongue.jpg
 
We spray the yard & foundation as well as using ant bait here & there. They carry it back to the nest & the others die as well. One time, when we were newlyweds living upstairs in a duplex, I saw the ants take the bait tin I'd set outside the windowsill. They got together, picked it up, & dropped it over the side! Greedy lil suckers?!
 
My impression is that borax mixed with baits is way less effective than boric acid, which should be about 5% of the bait by weight. I've fought with these little bastards quite a bit.
 
SharonaZamboni said:
Terro ant bait. Or make your own by mixing borax and sugar water. The ants tell their friends about it, and they all come marching in to eat it up. They carry it back to the nest and die.
Click to expand...

+1000

Any ant that wants something sweet Terro is the way to go. A week later, no ants! I've been using it since college with great results.
 
SharonaZamboni said:
Terro ant bait. Or make your own by mixing borax and sugar water. The ants tell their friends about it, and they all come marching in to eat it up. They carry it back to the nest and die.
Click to expand...

This is what I've used with great, great success - from sugar ants at my parents' house when I was a kid, to the Pharaoh ants we got in the house last summer, to the big black SOBs who hung around our patio. It works so, so well and so efficiently.

Terro is a mixture of Borax and sugar. The Borax kills the ants, but not for a couple of days after ingestion. The workers get a tummy-full, they bring it back to the nest and share it with the rest of the nest. By the time the Borax starts killing them, they've all eaten it. As I watch the workers circle around the drops of Terro, I twirl my handlebar moustache and say muahhahahaha!
 
Terro is a ready made ant bait brand you buy at the store. You can mix borax and sugar water to make your own though. I've never done it, we buy terro. It works great.


Sent from my iPad using Home Brew
 
if you have an ant problem then get rid of your rose bushes, seriously all of them.
 
+1 on terro. I use the liquid bait packs. Those buggers swarm to the stuff. There's a certain sadistic pleasure you get from watching them all take the stuff back to the nest. Within a few days you'll see their numbers dwindle. In about a week they will all be goners.
 
I have a service that sprays every 2 months but will come out for off-scheduling spraying if needed. I also run around the house with Amdro Ant Block. That is the only thing that has proven to get rid of ants in places where I didn't have pest control services. I don't bait, if I do it would be outside. I had an issue 2 weeks back, got a spray treatment and all has been okay.
 
I hate ants!

I have major ant problems during the spring. They've done a lot of damage to my property over the years, so I spray every year. The spray seems to help.

I have a stone patio that was built on a sand base and they got under it. They borrowed under the stones and pushed up sand which caused my patio stones to shift. I had to redo the entire patio last year. The entire structure was undermined by ants. I didn't use sand this time.

They actually ate a wall in my house. I had a small roof leak that allowed plywood covering my house to get damp. Carpenter ants got in there and destroyed the plywood and a lot of the 2x4s. One day the whole wall just disintigrated and water poured into the house. I had to have the entire side of my house rebuilt. Of course my insurance didn't cover it.

Sorry for the rant, but I'll say it again - I hate ants!
 
No ants yet, but I did find a baby roach in the Starsan in my 3 piece Airlock on my last batch. Fortunately, he was all kinds of dead. My apartment is a bungalow style building with shared walls on all sides but the front door, and we've been fighting roaches for a long time. Only recently did the management company finally listen and send somebody, and they dropped some gel stuff in our cabinets. The bug numbers are now severely reduced, and the few that still get out once in awhile stumble around kinda drunkenly.

Fortunately, no ill effects on the batch ;)
 
Thanks everyone. I am going to find some Terro and put it around the house. Apparently this stuff is like magic, according to the Amazon reviews I read :)
 
I used to live in Texas, and had a problem with fire ants (nasty little buggers) getting into my dog's food dish. Chemicals were out of the question because I didn't want to poison my dog.
My solution was electricity. I found some conductive copper foil tape from 3m. I placed 2 rows of it all the way around her dish, spaced about a 1/8 inch apart. I then wired each strip to a 9v battery clip and hooked a battery up to it.
Worked great. They would start to climb and make contact with both strips, receive a shock and fall to the ground, stunned. You could also do this with a AC to DC wall charger for a little more amperage and it may well prove fatal instead of just stunning them.
Edit: I have also read that cinnamon works well as an ant repellent.
 
ChrisVZ said:
I used to live in Texas, and had a problem with fire ants (nasty little buggers) getting into my dog's food dish. Chemicals were out of the question because I didn't want to poison my dog.
My solution was electricity. I found some conductive copper foil tape from 3m. I placed 2 rows of it all the way around her dish, spaced about a 1/8 inch apart. I then wired each strip to a 9v battery clip and hooked a battery up to it.
Worked great. They would start to climb and make contact with both strips, receive a shock and fall to the ground, stunned. You could also do this with a AC to DC wall charger for a little more amperage and it may well prove fatal instead of just stunning them.
Edit: I have also read that cinnamon works well as an ant repellent.
Click to expand...

This is, by far, the coolest way to deal with ants (short of an automated machine gun nest) that I have ever heard. I salute you!
 
ImNoExpert said:
This is, by far, the coolest way to deal with ants (short of an automated machine gun nest) that I have ever heard. I salute you!
Click to expand...


It was pretty entertaining watching them repeatedly try to get up the sides. They never learned and shocked themselves over and over. Although, I would love to see the automated turret in action.
 
yukonhijack said:
I brew in my garage
Click to expand...

do_you_want_ants.jpg


But seriously - I just spray around our house in the spring and fall with whatever insect barrier stuff the local hardware stores have on sale, I don't have problems with finding any insects in the house. If any do make it in, the cats and dogs end up snacking on them before I see them.
 
Eradicate the ant colonies! We use a readily available ant bait called Terro. It is basically Boric acid and simple syrup. It is the most pet safe and by far most effect thing I have found yet. This is what many exterminators use when their chemical treatments fail. You can wipe out a whole colony in a week with it. Buy the liquid and squeeze it on some bread crust on one of the card board squares they give you. Being able to take it back in large doses helps speed up the process. If you do not have pet issues or can put it where your pets cannot get to it sweeten it up with some combat ant gel. They literally run to the ant gel. I add it on top of the bread soaked in terro and they stream to it in droves. Keep the bread wet and replace as needed. Those ants will be gone in no time.
 
Spectracide and other companies make an ant bait that actually targets the entire colony. It costs only a few dollars a bag and has helped out a LOAD with our fire ants here. I also spray the entire yard with a general pesticide to help knock down the fleas and ticks, it works only a tiny bit against the fire ants.

My buddy that was an exterminator for 7 years told me ants are by far the hardest pest to deal with.
 
Found Terro ant bait at the local walmart. I have it set up and will see if I get some takers. We only have little sugar ants, but I sure hate them.
 
I've never had any issue keeping ants out of my homebrew. But maybe it was just cause I was too busy fighting off all the uncles.
 
It's fascinating to watch once they find the Terro. Ants will completely surround the little drops and drink their fill.
 
I put out the Terro this morning. Little bastards are taking the bait! You guys were right, they line up like they are drinking mother's milk. Can't wait to hear the muffled cries of death coming from their colony :)
 

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